Passion
by silver-kin
Summary: He wanted to be, even without a heart. At first, his cards were all he needed. But when those were longer be enough, he found something else that was. LuxordXigbar
1. Pitch Black

Well, would you look at that? It's another fic in less than a week. Hopefully, I might be on a roll. To start with, I have no idea where this story is going, nor how it'll end. What I do know is that it'll be mostly about our lucky gambler and that it'll be, eventually, Luxord/Xigbar (warning there). So, if that's okay with whomever it is that's reading this, then read on, 'kay?

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter One : Pitch Black**

What's wrong with this place?

Everywhere he looked, no matter how much he strained to see further, all he could see was darkness. Everything seemed to have been painted black, and it stretched on for as far as he could see.

It scared him, though he did his best to hide it–from whom, he wondered–to be in the darkness like this. And yet…and yet, this place seemed to call out to him, calming him. It was like he both belonged and didn't in this place.

Which brought him to another question; how to leave?

He was laying down on the floor–ground, whatever, it's not like he could see what it looked like, since he was pretty sure it shouldn't be black–flat on his back. He had tried getting up, thinking that maybe, if he walked for a bit, he'd find a place that wasn't completely black, but the minute he'd moved pain shot to every corner of his body. After the pain subsided, he decided it would be better to stay like that. It wasn't like he was in a hurry to get somewhere.

He had opened his eyes and the first thing he noticed was the darkness. After a few moments of contemplating the nature of the place he saw, he began to think about other things. Things like his name, his age, his home, and why the _bloody hell_ is it that the only question he could answer was his name.

_Luxord._ That was it. The only answer he could find. It was like everything about himself had been sucked away and the only thing left was his name. And it irritated him, because all it did was bring forward a new question; why couldn't he remember?

And exactly where was he going to go next? Not that it would matter if he couldn't think of a way to get up. But surely, there must be a place he could go to. And if there was, _why_ _couldn't he remember?_

He sighed. This was not helping.

It would probably work better if he could pace around or walk or _anything _but he could barely curl his fingers, let alone stand up.

He wondered how his voice sounded like. Apparently he had forgotten that too, amongst many other things. He wanted to say something and almost had when it occurred to him what it would mean if he didn't hear anything. Not only would that make him blind–because again, no place could possibly be pitch black, so the only reasonable explanation was that he had somehow lost his sight–he would be deaf too.

Now _that, _he decided, was too much to handle right now. He was quite proud of the fact that he was still sane after getting this far. It wouldn't benefit him if everything broke and his mind gave in to madness.

He wondered vaguely, how long he had been lying there. There was no apparent way to tell time, so he could only estimate. Figuring that it had been quite some time since he woke up, he wondered if he was hungry. Maybe, since there seemed to be no way of leaving, he would die of hunger. That thought tickled his mind, but he responded by resisting the urge to laugh–surprisingly his mind still remembered what a laugh was–and decided that wouldn't be all that bad. Better probably, than going mad.

He spent another long period of time contemplating his new set of thoughts. Being so deeply in thought, he barely noticed the tingling sensation that began to make its way through his body. It started with just a bit around his head, then spreading out to the other parts of his body.

Eyes widening, Luxord wondered if this was the right time to be panicking. The tingling was getting stronger and stronger by the moment. He had no idea if it was a good thing–since it might mean something good was happening–or a really, really bad thing–since it might also mean something else entirely–.

Suddenly, the darkness seemed more threatening than it was before. It seemed to close in on him, slowly enveloping his mind and body with the emptiness it seemed to represent. Panic started to grip him as he struggled to control the fear that had slowly made its way into his mind. The darkness, having covered more and more of him without slowing down, was making its way up, apparently aiming to completely cover his whole body with that pitch black he was starting to _really_ hate.

Was he going to let it do as it pleased? Most definitely not. Deciding it was better to risk feeling pain than giving in just like that, he struggled against the blanket of darkness. He winced as the pain shot through every part of his body and struggled even harder, pushing at everything he could push against, determination spurring him on.

And then, just as surprisingly as everything had began, the darkness stopped moving. He blinked once, surprised, and let out a long breath he didn't know he had been holding. He pushed himself up to a sitting position. Panting slightly at the amount of energy it had taken do so, he mentally prepared himself for the most definitely more exhausting-and painful-process of standing up.

Breathing in deeply, he braced himself and stood up. The simple act of doing so left him almost breathless, and he only managed to continue standing up using every bit of energy he had left. Not being able to stop the feeling of pride at his accomplishment, he smiled slightly to himself.

Feeling a bit of his strength return, he straightened and looked around. Nothing seemed to be different; everything was still pitch black.

No, that wasn't it. Concentrating harder, he noticed a part of the darkness that seemed to be moving. Hoping that was the way out, and not really seeing anything else that could possibly be done, he quickly made his way towards it.

Upon reaching it, he realized the moving shapes seemed to form an oval of some sort. 'Maybe it's some kind of portal,' he mused, laughing inwardly at the mere thought of such a possibility. But then again, after everything he had just experienced, maybe it was possible after all.

Seeing as how he had absolutely nothing to lose, he stepped into the darkness, ignoring the mental protests of trusting the darkness like this. Who knows where it leads too; it wasn't like he cared, so long as it was someplace painted a different color than the one he had been seeing for so long.

**End of 1st chapter**

So, what do you think? Reviews are very welcomed as they feed the mind. It might be some time before the next chapter (that is, if you're still interested), so there might be a bit of waiting. Anyways, I really hope people like this and comment on it. Thanks for taking the time to read this!


	2. Deja Vu

I thought I should say this first; I have never done a pairing before. So, I have no idea how, exactly, I'm going to do this but I will try my very best. That's all, so, on to the story…

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter Two : Deja Vu**

As he stepped forward, he realized the floor was solid–which was a good sign; it meant he didn't end up in some part of the sky–and, much to his satisfaction, it wasn't black.

He took a few careful steps forward, alert for any kind of surprises. Remembering the portal, he turned around only to find that it had disappeared. He tried to remember what it was that his mind saw during the short period of time he had spent inside the portal, trying to make sense of the images he had seen. No matter how hard he tried, the images refused to become clearer, so all he could remember were blurred pictures painted with mixed colors.

Giving up for the time being, Luxord let out a long sigh. He would try again later. Surveying this other place he had apparently come to, he noticed a lot of things. The sky was a mix of dark red and orange, so he estimated the time of the day to be around dusk. He also noticed voices. He followed the voices, leading himself to a small town alive with busy people moving about.

As he wandered aimlessly around the street, he received stares from some curious people. It occurred to him that he had no idea how he looked like. Stopping in front of a random shop, he turned to face the mirror, only to give a slight start as he took in the appearance of his reflection.

Luxord had short yellow hair and blue eyes. He was, as his reflection seemed to suggest, wearing a long black jacket, black pants and black shoes that seemed to stand out from the clothes around here. His hands were covered by black gloves. Other than the clothes, he could see no other reason why people would stare at him.

His thoughts turned to other matters such as, finding a place to stay and food. Pretty sure that he had no money-he was proven right when a quick search of his jacket pockets revealed only space-he was sure those two were not going to be easy to get. At least, until he figured out a way to get money. Stealing was out of the question, he was sure he wouldn't be fast enough. That and because that would cause unnecessary suspicion and attention. He didn't want to turn to working just yet, so he looked for some other alternative.

Finding a man who appeared to be not too busy, Luxord approached him and tapped his shoulder. "Pardon me for bothering you," he paused, surprised at the sound of his voice. He had forgotten his initial fear of being mute and deaf. "But could you inform me of a fast an easy way to get money?" Asking for the name of this place was probably a bad idea, so he didn't.

The man turned and looked at him. He took in his appearance with curiosity before answering. "Why do you ask?"

"I'm looking for a place to stay, but to do that, I'll need money first."

"Well, that means you're new around here, right?" He paused before opening his mouth again, as if gathering courage to say what he said next, "Are you a pirate, by any chance?" The question was asked with a slight fear and his whole body seemed to tense up, as if dreading the answer.

'Pirate?' he wondered. That suspicion could also be the source of the stares. "No, I'm not. I have, however, come from a place quite far from here."

The man relaxed visibly. "Sorry 'bout that. We were told to question suspicious people; could help with the search, you see. With all these sudden pirate attacks, one can't be too careful." He grinned at Luxord.

'And yet, if I had answered yes, what is it that you would have done?' He decided that question was also not among the question he should ask. Instead, he returned to his original question. "So, do you know of a way?"

The larger man laughed. "You could always work for the money, but I suppose you already know that." Yes, he did. This man was testing his patience, but he managed to control his expression. There was a short pause before the man continued. "Well, you could always do a bit of gambling at a tavern."

_Gambling._ Luxord considered this for a moment. It sounded good to him, and something in his mind seemed to welcome this idea. Looking back at the man, he said, "That sounds agreeable. Would you mind directing me to the nearest tavern?"

Thanking the man for his time, Luxord followed the directions he had been given. After some time of walking, he reached the place he assumed was his destination. Pushing the door open, he was greeted with an increase in the sound volume.

Taking in his surroundings, he realized that there were a lot of people. They were either drinking, playing cards, brawling or trying to catch the attention of various young ladies. Unsure of how to proceed, he moved to a gambling spot with the least amount of people, carefully avoiding collision with the drunken figures present. Reaching a table occupied by three men, he said as politely as possible. "Is there space for another player?"

Three pairs of eyes turned to him. One of them waved his hand enthusiastically–the best player there, judging from the hungry look in his eyes–and said, "'course there is. Always space for more in a game of poker." As Luxord sat down in an empty chair, he watched as the three men finished their game, the one who had spoken first winning.

The man sitting on his right spoke to him, "What will be your bet?" His words appeared a bit slurred, the aftereffects of alcohol, probably.

Luxord considered this carefully, having given it no thought before that moment. He had no money, so cash was out of the question. The only thing he could possibly bet was his jacket. Choosing his words carefully, he voiced out his answer, "At this moment, I would have to admit that I do not possess any money. However, if it's all right with you," he gestured to the three men with his hand, "I could bet this jacket of mine."

The man on his right and the one who had yet to speak remained silent, whilst the remaining one laughed loudly. "No money, you say? That's something!" He continued to laugh, the whole table shaking. Luxord maintained a composed face, never letting his annoyance show, despite how satisfying it would have been to simply reach over and punch the stupid bastard's face.

Finally, after taking a moment to recover from his laughter, the man looked his way. "Well, the jacket does look like good material. It's definitely not from around here, so it might be worth a bit." He gave each player five cards, a confident smirk having made its way onto his face. "Winner of ten games wins."

Luxord picked up his cards, seething inside. He pushed down the bubbling anger and looked at his cards. The memory of having done this before overcame him, and for a brief moment, he was lost in the déjà vu. The various ways of this game flowed easily into his mind and he welcomed it. Looking at his cards again, he saw quite clearly the outcome of this game.

He put down his cards as the others had done, enjoying a warm feeling of satisfaction at the look on his opponents' faces. 'How does that feel, you arrogant bastard?' he thought. Said man gathered the cards and muttered something incoherent, shuffling the cards and dealing them again.

Again and again, Luxord came out on top. He won every game with great ease, easily shattering the earlier men's confidence and hope. After those people refused to play anymore with him, Luxord got up and searched for other people to play with. The games he played with others proceeded exactly as his first one.

By the end of the day, he had gone from penniless to having enough money for a good room at an inn and a filling meal to erase the hunger that had come out of nowhere. Sitting on the bed of his quite clean room in the nearest inn he could find-it was very dark when he left the tavern and being as tired as he was, he hadn't bothered to search very far-Luxord decided that things had definitely gone well for him that day.

He allowed himself a small smirk, thinking of tomorrow. Tomorrow, he decided, he would visit the tavern again and play some more. The very idea of it left him with a feeling eagerness and anticipation.

Luxord could feel his smirk widen slightly, and he got up, intending to prepare for bed. Stopping in front of a window, he gazed outside into the darkness and a strange, hollow feeling crept into his body. Shivering, he quickly pushed the feeling away, and concentrated once more on tomorrow. The feeling seemed to lessen and he felt relieved. Returning to his original task, his thoughts turned to how luck had favored him and he had the benefit of feeling pleased. It felt good after everything he had encountered earlier today. He mused to himself, 'Looks like luck is on my side now.'

**End of 2nd chapter**

I don't believe it. I actually finished the second chapter. This is so cool! Again, I would really like to know what people think of this, so please drop a review, 'kay? We thank you very much for your time!


	3. The World that Never Was

By the way, I haven't exactly played KH:CoM, so I don't really understand what happened. Some of the stuff in this story may contradict the game. If it does, please let me know and I'll fix it, although if the mistakes are too complicated and stuff, I'll probably just leave it as it is.

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter 3 : The World that Never Was**

It's been almost a week since the day he woke up in darkness. He got up and walked to the window, watching the busy figures moving about in the street.

He touched the cool glass. The past few days had been very eventful for Luxord. Everyday he would gamble for money, and he'd win every single game. It was easy and fun; he always had playing with stubborn idiots who didn't know when to give up–hopefully they would never know, else he would have to find a new profession–to look forward to, and yet…

And yet, something was missing. He couldn't name it, only describe it to himself. Each time was unpredictable. Sometimes it would come when he was bathing, sometimes while he ate, sometimes during his few walks around the town, and sometimes during his games. Everyday–it had come more and more often–a dark feeling would suddenly overcome him, leaving him restless and needing something else to focus on. It was dark and…empty.

Luxord hated that feeling. Hated it because it always left him feeling confused and angry at the same time. There was nothing he could do to stop it when it came, other than wait for the feeling to pass. Every time it came he got frustrated. There was a time when it came during a game of poker. He, not being able to bear it any longer at that point, had gotten up and left. He didn't think he could maintain a blank expression any longer. The people in the tavern, he guessed, had been shocked at his sudden departure, but none of them complained, so long as he came back the next day.

He closed his eyes. The feeling wasn't the only thing that bothered him, though. Five days after his arrival at Port Royal, he had encountered a strange man. If it weren't for the fact that the man was wearing the exact same jacket as him, he would have waved off the man's words as insanity. The other reason was because, as he watched the other man talk, everything about him had seemed…right and wrong at the same time.

"_It seems you made it past the darkness." He clapped his hands. "Well done."_

_Luxord_ _watched the man, who had, only moments ago, stepped out of a portal he recognized, with a guarded expression. "Who are you?"_

"_I have devised a plan that will allow us to recover what was once ours. I will lead you and the others to salvation. All I ask is your service."_

_He raised an eyebrow at this. "What do you want?"_

"_I want what is rightfully mine. It was taken away then, but it will be mine again soon enough."_

"_I see," he said. "Allow me to rephrase; what is it that you want from **me**?"_

"_I require more power. You have power; I can sense it. I'm asking you to work for me."_

_He wondered if this man was being serious or if he was just insane. 'Either way, it wouldn't hurt to go along with it for a little while longer,' he thought. "If I do agree to work for you, what will I get in return?"_

_The man in nodded, the hood covering his head moving as one with his head. "You will also recover what you lost."_

'…_my memories?' He doubted it, and wondered what the man's answer would be. "What is it exactly that I have lost?"_

_The man seemed to pause at that, and said nothing for some time. Then he tilted his head slightly to his left, crossing his arms in front of him. "You do not know?"_

_He digested this, but made no move to answer as he rolled the other man's words around in his head, trying to understand what he had meant. At the sound of laughter, he returned his attention to the other man. The laughter sounded wrong, but he had no idea why._

_He stopped laughing. "You have not realized yet, what you are?"_

_Luxord_ _wondered what this man expected him to say. "I am human."_

_The other man laughed once more, and Luxord realized that it sounded hollow. "I expected you to have figured it out already, but it seems I overestimated your intelligence."_

_He felt annoyed now. 'Is he mocking me?' He could feel his blank expression pull into a frown and he resisted it. "What do you mean?"_

"_You are **not** human. Neither am I. We are the same; we used to be humans until we lost what was–and still is–most precious to us to the darkness. Now," he waved his hands, "Now, we are nothing."_

"_If we were nothing, how is it possible for us to stand here right now?"_

"_That is because we are Nobodies."_

"…_what?"_

"_When a person loses his heart to the darkness, he becomes what we call a Heartless. They have no minds and are controlled by those who dwell in the world of darkness." He paused for a moment, as if giving Luxord time to process this new information he was giving him._

_At this point, Luxord was beginning to doubt his decision to stop and listen to what this man had to say was a very good idea. He was considering the various ways to leave when the man resumed speaking._

"_Just like Heartless are made of the darkness in people's hearts, Nobodies are made of what's left of those who were before they became Heartless. However, Nobodies are formed only when a strong-willed person loses to the darkness. They are empty shells who crave the feeling of having a heart. That is what we are." The other man looked at him, waiting for his response._

_He wasn't sure **how** to respond. The very idea of believing that what this man had said to him was the truth seemed ridiculous. 'Does he really expect me to believe him?' The other man's sanity–or rather, his lack of it–wasn't what bothered him, though. What bothered him was that, if this man was telling the truth, it would, in an impossible way, explain things._

_According to the other man, Luxord was what was left of the person he once was. That might explain his lack of memories. It would explain why the only thing he could remember when he first woke up was his name. Only now he couldn't be sure if that was really his name. It didn't exactly explain why he ended up where he did, unless of course, he had been in the darkness. That would make sense, in a strange way._

_But…if he chose to believe what the other man had said, than it meant he was agreeing to being a Nobody. By agreeing to be a Nobody, he was agreeing to…_

_No. He wasn't going to agree with the other man. It was ridiculous. "It seems I don't believe you, so let us end this conversation here." He turned around and began to walk back to the inn he was staying at._

"_You're afraid."_

_Luxord_ _stopped walking, his whole body freezing at the other man's sentence. He turned to face the stranger._

"_Admit it. You're afraid."_

_He didn't have to listen to this man. He didn't have to stand here and believe any of information the man had given him. Turning around once more, Luxord resumed his journey back to the inn, ignoring the other man, his words and the sudden appearance of new thoughts._

Luxord withdrew his hand from the window. Afraid? He wasn't afraid. He took risks everyday. During the first pirate attack he witnessed, he had chosen a member of the crew and followed him, wanting to see how events would turn out. He had followed the pirate until the pirate headed back to his ship, and he had not been detected. He did the same thing during the next two pirate attacks. He won every single time, and he enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment after every game. He understood the risks of the games he played, but that didn't stop him from playing.

He _liked _risks.

Obviously, he wasn't afraid. Most definitely not afraid of the things the other man was implying. He just didn't believe them, because if he did, it would mean he was believing that he was a Nobody; a being that…lacked hearts.

Luxord moved touched his right hand to his chest. Now that he had stopped to think about it, the feeling–even after the conversation took place, he still had no idea what to call it–seemed to originate from there, where his heart lies. 'Or should be,' he mused.

If he really was a Nobody, that meant he had lost his heart. Without his heart, he was an empty being, an incomplete. Hearts were the source of emotion, so it meant he couldn't feel emotions anymore. But then, what about the emotions he had felt these past few days? What were they supposed to mean? Were they just imitations of feelings from before?

In that case, the best thing to do would be to find his heart again. It was the same conclusion he had reached since the day he had met the strange man.

The other man had also mentioned that he had powers, but even if he did, what kind of powers did he possess? How did he use them? Or, better still, how did he _learn _how to use them?

The question was how did he find the other man? He had taken countless walks around town but he had yet to find the man he was looking for. He had searched everywhere, and still, he came up empty-handed.

Luxord rubbed his temple. Wonderful. Now he had a headache, and he was _still_ not making any progress. Out of sheer frustration–and lack of ideas–he voiced his question to the thin air, betraying his annoyance, "How do I find you?"

"I wondered how much longer it would take you."

Luxord spun around, eyes frantically searching for the source of the voice. It wasn't the voice of the man he had encountered; could it be one of his accomplices? When the voice remained silent, he asked, "Where are you hiding?"

A familiar portal appeared next to the bed, and Luxord backed away from it as a figure stepped out of it. As he came into full view, Luxord took a moment to examine the intruder. He was also wearing the same long black jacket–or coat–, but he had his hood down.

The first thing Luxord noticed about the man who had introduced himself to his room was that he wore an eye patch. It covered his right eye. The next thing he noticed was the scar on the bottom left side of his face. The other man smirked at him and said, "Not hiding no more."

Eyeing him cautiously, Luxord bit back an angry hurl of words–such as, 'How the _hell_ did you get into my room?'–and settled for a simple, "Who are you?"

His smirk grew wider. "Xigbar."

Luxord raised an eyebrow, not expecting a name so soon, instead of a mysterious answer. "What," he emphasized the word 'what', "are you doing in my room?"

The other man–Xigbar, was it?–leaned against seemingly nothing but the air, but managed to remain upright. "I was told to take you back with me when you were ready."

"Take me where?"

"Back to the castle, obviously. Xemnas still wants to talk to you, after all. And you'll have to meet the others, too."

"Xemnas?"

He waved a hand. "You know, the dude you met the other day. The one that explained stuff to you."

'So his name is Xemnas.' He tucked away that piece of information carefully for future use. "How many more of you are there?"

"Including you, that would make 10. But Xemnas seems to think we need more people. Keeps saying, 'We will need more power to defeat the Keybearer and his friends,' and stuff like that. As if!"

Xigbar had a peculiar way of talking. "Keywhat?"

"You know, you can get your answers from Xemnas later. The sooner you come with me, the sooner you get to talk with Xemnas, the sooner you get your answers. I _was_, after all, ordered to take you back with me."

"Are we going to walk to this place?"

Xigbar waved a hand to the portal. "As if," he said, sounding amused. "You just step into that, and I'll go in after you. Then, we'll be back at the castle."

Hearing his explanation, Luxord felt–as much as he hated to admit it–something close to fear. Didn't he only escape the darkness because he went through the portal? Wouldn't going into it lead him back to the darkness?

Xigbar watched him in silence, his face unreadable. "What's the matter? Don't trust me? Or are you scared?" With the last sentence his face, Luxord noticed, resumed that _goddamn_ smirk!

Luxord shifted his complete attention from the portal to glare at Xigbar, his words cold. "It would be incredibly foolish of me to trust a complete stranger. Even more so if he suddenly appears in my room."

"Aw, don't worry about it. It's not like you'll get lost or anything. Nothing to worry about. Besides," Xigbar tilted his head, his smirk growing sly, "_I'll_ be with you."

Luxord felt like he was being mocked, but he wasn't sure why. After a pause, he moved closer to the portal, all the while watching Xigbar's carefully. When he was directly in front it he stopped, trying to delay what he had to do next. "And being with you is something I don't have to worry about because…?"

Xigbar laughed and shoved him into the portal. Luxord, who had been caught off guard by the other man's laughter, stumbled unwillingly into the portal

Moments later, his vision, being blurred from dizziness, showed him a mix of blue and white. No darkness in sight. 'So far, so good,' he thought. He also heard nothing but complete silence until Xigbar appeared behind him. When Luxord continued to remain where he was, Xigbar pushed him and said, "Come on. Can't stay here forever, you know."

Resisting the urge to push back–although a frown had formed on his face–Luxord followed the figure moving towards a different looking portal. He stopped when said man stopped in front of it and said, "One more time."

Realizing that Xigbar was waiting for him to go in first–and not wanting to risk being pushed again–he moved towards the portal and stepped into it, Xigbar following closely behind.

Trying not to stumble from the dizziness, Luxord closed his eyes. Only when he felt the last remaining bits of dizziness fade away did he open his eyes, only to find another strange world and a smirking Xigbar.

Said man moved in front of him and, as Luxord took in his new surroundings, said, "Welcome," Luxord shifted his attention to Xigbar, "to the World that Never Was."

**End of 3rd chapter**

There. Bet Xigbar's horribly out of character. I'm sorry if he is.


	4. Silence in the Rain

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter Four : Silence in the Rain**

They walked for what seemed like hours. When asked how much further their destination was, Xigbar had smirked and said, "What? Tired of walking already?"

Since he was here and he probably couldn't leave anytime soon, Luxord had resigned to looking around at the buildings around him. There were so many buildings, yet the whole placed seemed eerily quiet and deserted. Due to the silence around him, Luxord had chosen to assume that all the buildings were unoccupied. He tried not to think too much about it, because then he would ask himself who built all of the buildings and why.

Another strange thing about this world was the rain. It seemed to drizzle softly. Every now and then the rain would come down harder and mercilessly. Because of the rain, they were both, obviously, drenched.

The other thing that bothered him was how strangely quiet Xigbar had become. Since his short welcoming greeting when they first arrived, he had barely said anything. It unnerved him, making his whole body tense.

Luxord eyed the man walking in front of him. He was quite sure they weren't lost; there would be a different expression on Xigbar's face if they were, he was sure. It did seem to be true, however, that said man was moving very quietly. He was taking great care to make as little noise as possible as they walked and Luxord had mimicked him. He also appeared to be tense, as if waiting for an ambush.

The gambler was in the middle of wondering what kind of enemy Xigbar could be waiting for before he got an answer. Suddenly and completely out of nowhere–well, the ground, to be more specific–thousands of similar black creatures appeared. They moved randomly towards Luxord and Xigbar, causing Luxord to back away instinctively, unsure of what else he could do.

Even as he moved closer to the wall behind him, he was entranced by the other man's movements. Whatever tenseness Xigbar had been feeling before the sudden attack seemed to melt away as Luxord watched him.

The smirk seemed to have found its way back to Xigbar's face as he moved around the attackers. In his hands he held a strange looking gun, one in each hand. He also moved however he pleased, seemingly ignoring the rules of gravity. As Luxord continued to watch the gunner, Xigbar floated around in mid-air, sometimes hanging upside down, sometimes side-ways. Bright sparks danced around the black creatures as Xigbar shot and moved around with inhuman speed. One minute he was right in front of Luxord, and the next he was on the other side of the square.

Luxord knew the obvious winner of the battle, and he had to work hard to keep his expression blank as he watched the other man approach him, the guns and creatures having disappeared.

Xigbar stood in front of him in silence for a moment before saying, "What? No comments?"

When Luxord didn't say anything, the other man turned and resumed walking, seeming a little disappointed. Luxord followed suit in complete silence, trying to recover from the sudden shock. After a few moments of silence, he asked, "Those creatures, what were they?"

"Heartless," came the slightly offended reply.

Luxord raised an eyebrow. He didn't expect the other man to react this way. Besides, what _could_ he have said? A 'Thank you,' maybe. Or did he expect a compliment? Luxord was _not_ going to compliment him, even if the battle he had just witnessed was amazing.

…Not that Luxord even cared if the other man was offended. Did he care? He didn't think so, no. In fact, _he_ should be the one angry, not the other way around. Xigbar could have warned him about the _fucking Heartless_ before they started walking! He calmed himself down, not wanting to do something he'd regret later; this man was getting on his nerves but Luxord wasn't about to show it.

The walk continued in silence until they reached their–he assumed–destination. Xigbar came to a halt in front of the big gaping hole in the middle. Light seemed to be glowing out from the bottom of the hole. There was a single path that led into the building–the castle, probably–and it seemed to float in the air.

Luxord was assured of its stability later when Xigbar confidently stepped onto the pathway and walked towards the castle. He did the same and continued to follow the other man.

As they dripped inside, he was confronted by a very intriguing view. There was so much to take in; the whole castle seemed to be a big maze. Deciding to explore the castle as soon as possible, he returned his attention to Xigbar. They continued to walk silently until they reached a room, having passed many other rooms before coming to this one.

Xigbar raised one hand and–rather reluctantly, it seemed to Luxord–knocked twice on the door before saying, "Xemnas, it's me."

A voice from the inside said, "Come in."

Xigbar opened the door and Luxord followed him inside. A man with silver hair was sitting at a table. He looked at them as they walked inside and only spoke once Xigbar had closed the door, addressing the gunner, "Well done. It seems you managed to bring him back in one piece."

Folding his arms in front of him, Xigbar said, "Obviously. You _did_ specifically ask me to."

"That I did. Your mission has been completed," Xemnas waved a hand towards the door, "Please wait outside. I will need you to show him his room after I'm finished."

With a slight grunt of annoyance, probably from being dismissed so easily, Xigbar exited the room, leaving Luxord alone with Xemnas.

The silver-haired man eyed Luxord for a moment before speaking, "I'm glad you have decided to aid us. Your help will be welcomed and put to good use."

Remembering Xigbar's words earlier, he voiced his question carefully. "What exactly is your goal?"

Xemnas laughed slightly. "Our goal is Kingdom Hearts, heart of all hearts. To become complete again, we will need hearts. In Kingdom Hearts, we can find all the hearts we need."

'Okay,' he thought. "How would I be able to help you?"

"You can help us by fighting alongside us."

"With my powers?" At the other man's nod, he continued, "But I don't know how to use it." 'I'm not even sure it exists,' he added silently.

"That doesn't matter. I will find someone to help you learn to use it."

Luxord accepted that in silence, deciding to worry about it later. "Earlier, Xigbar mentioned a 'Keyblade'."

Xemnas seemed to consider the question. "The Keyblade is our prime enemy. I am sure it would not allow us to simply take control of Kingdom Hearts. It will fight back, and so will its chosen bearer." At Luxord's silence, he elaborated, "Kingdom Hearts is light. The Heartless are darkness. Neither will allow us to have our way easily, and both will fight us for Kingdom Hearts; the light to protect it, and the darkness to gain more power. Once we set our plan in motion and they realize our goal, they will stop at nothing to prevent us from reaching it."

He took his time considering the information. "So fighting the Keyblade and the Heartless is necessary."

The other man nodded. "Yes. However, we will probably spend more time fighting the Keybearer and his friends than the Heartless. You see, the creatures of light are more insolent than the darkness, the Keybearer himself, being the most insolent. With the right diversions and timing, we will be able to obtain Kingdom Hearts easily."

"How do we obtain Kingdom Hearts?"

"Simple. We must collect a large number of hearts. Every time the Keybearer slays a Heartless, the heart of the person the Heartless used to be will be released. The Heartless and the Keybearer will most definitely continue fighting each other. All _we_ have to do is collect the released hearts. Once we have enough, Kingdom Hearts will open its door to us. All that is left to do after that is to claim hearts for ourselves and we will become complete once more."

He was going to have a lot to consider later. "What part do we play in this?"

Xemnas's smile was eerie as he answered Luxord, "Well, to put it simply, we ensure the Keybearer and his friends have a large amount of Heartless to slay standing in their way."

When Luxord remained silent, the other man spoke up, "Are you satisfied with the information you have now?" Luxord nodded. "Very well."

Xemnas called the gunner back into the room. "Xigbar will show you to your room. But before that, _I_ have a question. What," Xemnas gestured to him, "is your name?"

There was a moment of silence before he answered, "Luxord."

The other man nodded. "Feel free to familiarize yourself with the rest of the castle. This is where you will be staying from now on. I will call for you when I need anything." With that, he returned to the papers he was studying on his table.

Both of them exited the room and Luxord followed silently as Xigbar led the way. After a few moments of walking, he stopped in front of a door and said, "This is you room. The rest of us stay in rooms close by." He paused, as if trying to remember what else he should say. "Oh, right. Breakfast is prepared in the kitchen, eaten everywhere else, depends on the person. Usually we make our own breakfast but every now and then one of us decides to cook for everyone."

Luxord moved to open the door. Once he had stepped inside the room–_his_ room now–he turned to face Xigbar, who had moved aside so Luxord could open the door.

Unsure of why he was even considering doing it but doing it anyways, he said, "Xigbar." The other man waited, seeming a bit surprised. Luxord paused for a moment, frantically searching for the right way to say it. "For taking me here, and just now," It wasn't working very well, his idea. Not going as smoothly as he wanted it to; too many pauses. "Thank you." He said finally, feeling very much annoyed with himself at the amount of work it had needed.

The gunner had no reaction, at first, other than looking quite surprised. Then, the now quickly becoming familiar smirk returned to his face and he said, "No biggie, _Luxord._ See you at breakfast tomorrow. I'll introduce the others to you then." With a wave, Xigbar walked down the hall.

Luxord closed the door and looked around his room. It was simple; it had a bed, a window, a bathroom, a table and a chair. Nothing too fancy. He moved towards his bed and sat on it, deciding not to care that he was still in his wet clothes and the sheets were probably going to end up wet too.

He realized the extent of his exhaustion when he couldn't bring himself to get up again. He didn't particularly want to anyways. He would mull over the new information he had received tomorrow. Instead of forcing himself to get up again, Luxord merely took off his jacket, threw it onto the table, and proceeded to make himself more comfortable, shifting to a different position before falling asleep.

**End of 4th chapter**

Man, I so bet this story is turning out to be really lame. It probably _really_ sucks. Well, it's the best I can do. Ugh…anyways, feel free to criticize it all you want. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this.


	5. Looking for Reactions

Firstly, to the people who left a review, I thank you very much! It means so much to me and gave me new inspiration; I was getting worried there, since chapter 5 was taking a lot longer than the other chapters. I know you guys said you liked the way Luxord is, um…written in the first two chapters. I'm sorry if he seems to have changed since then, 'kay? Let me know about it and I'll try to fix it. I attempted some humor in this chapter. Don't know if it worked, though.

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter Five : Looking for Reactions**

Luxord woke up with a start, eyes opening suddenly. It took him some time to remember where he was and why he was here. Relaxing, he turned to lie on his back, enabling him to stare up at the ceiling of his room.

'What time is it?' was Luxord's first thought as he got up. One glance at his bed showed no signs of water or dampness. Either he had been asleep for so long that the water had dried up with him on it or even the water here was strange. He touched his clothes; it appeared to have dried up too.

His stomach felt empty, probably because he didn't eat anything after breakfast yesterday. Deciding to head to the kitchen, he put on his jacket–which had also dried–and left his room, walking to one end of the hall; the other end was a dead end. Coming to a sudden stop, Luxord realized that he didn't have the slightest idea _where_ the kitchen was. 'No matter. I'll get some of the exploring done at the same time.'

That was really how he felt, before he spent a grand total of–he assumed; he had no way of telling time–one and a half hours walking around the _bloody castle_ looking for the _goddamn kitchen!_ He stopped and rested his body against a wall, his patience wearing thin. He was _hungry, _damn it! Getting lost in a completely unfamiliar place was not something he enjoyed doing!

Just as he was about to start cursing the Xigbar, Xemnas, the castle and anything else he could think of out loud–really, he was _sick_ of surprises–, his ears picked up some voices. Trying to breathe as quietly as possible, Luxord concentrated hard on the voices. Heart pounding, he moved in the direction of the voices, hoping it would lead him to kitchen. 'At least let there be someone who can tell me where to get food,' he hoped silently.

The more he walked, the louder the voices became. His pace picked up speed, not wanting to risk losing the voices and getting lost even more in this unbelievably huge building. Therefore, he arrived at the kitchen a little out of breath but relieved. Despite Xigbar implying the kitchen would be almost empty, he was greeted with a heated argument.

There were two people arguing; that was the first thing he noticed. One of them was a large man with black hair tied back in a ponytail holding something–wait, was that a sugar jar?–as high as possible, apparently attempting to keep it out of the other man's reach. The shorter man in front of him who was straining to get the sugar jar had messy yellow hair. They were apparently fighting for the possession of the sugar jar.

"No! You can't have any sugar with your coffee!" The larger man said.

The shorter man scowled and whined, "Why not? Coffee tastes gross without sugar!"

"It doesn't matter! Xemnas _and_ Lexaeus specifically said not to let you take anymore sugar!"

"Just a little bit! Please? A small pinch would do," he pled.

"I said NO!" the larger man bellowed.

Luxord surveyed the rest of the kitchen and noticed three other figures sitting at the table. He recognized one of them to be Xigbar, although said man had not noticed him yet. The one sitting next to him had wild–and shockingly eye-catching–red hair. There was another man sitting in front of the red-haired man. His hair was yellowish brown and he held a mug of what seemed to be steaming hot coffee in his hands on the table.

All three spectators were watching the argument taking place with amusement; the one with a mug's being the least apparent. As the two figures continued wrestling for the sugar jar–well, the bigger one keeping the jar away from the shorter one–the red-haired man spoke up, "Just let him have the jar, Xaldin. I wanna see what happens to the castle _this_ time. Oh, and Xemnas's reaction, too." He grinned mischievously.

Xaldin–he assumed the bigger man was Xaldin–shot the speaker a heated glare before saying, "Fine! Demyx, you can have sugar." He lowered the jar but didn't hand it over yet. "But only if you promise to mess with _only_ Axel's stuff."

The blonde nodded enthusiastically and said, "Right! I promise! Thanks, Xaldin! You're the best!" He immediately began opening the jar.

At Xaldin's words, however, the red-haired man who had spoken had frozen in his chair for only a moment before he tackled the blonde. "NO! You can't have any sugar if you promise that, Demyx!" he said, beginning another fight for the sugar jar. Luxord, who was watching the whole drama take place with great amusement–'Was this kind of behavior normal?' he wondered–and doing his best to keep a straight face, heard a familiar laugh. He turned to look at Xigbar, who was now laughing so hard the whole table was shaking.

The man with the mug glared at Xigbar. "Stop it. You're spilling my coffee."

This only succeeded in making Xigbar laugh twice as hard. He looked up, his mouth opened with a ready retort, when he noticed Luxord standing at the doorway. Looking only a little surprised to see him, Xigbar said, "What are you doing standing there like that? How long have you been there? You could have said something, you know." Receiving nothing but silence–although two additional pairs of eyes were now looking at Luxord–he said, "Someone's not feeling very talkative today. Did you get up on the wrong side of bed? Or are you just not a morning person?"

Luxord glared at the offender, keeping his voice even as he answered, "No. I just encountered an unexpected obstacle on my way here."

This seemed to be interesting news to Xigbar. "Really? What was it?"

Leaning against the wall, he answered, "It was with a certain amount of difficulty that I found the kitchen." At Xigbar's look of incomprehension he continued, "You see, _someone_ forgot to inform me of the kitchen's location."

Understanding dawned on Xigbar. Instead of apologizing–not that Luxord expected an apology–Xigbar doubled over with laughter, his breath coming in short gasps for air from the amount of laughter. The man sitting opposite Xigbar regarded him with increasing annoyance, and Xaldin had no words to offer. When Xigbar finally managed to stop laughing, he offered Luxord a grin and a short, "Oops."

Luxord let out a short, soft sigh. Xigbar stood up and walked over to him, stopping almost directly in front of him before saying, "Okay. Since you're here and all, let's start the introducing." He turned around and said, "Guys, this is Luxord. Luxord, meet the happy members of the Organization." He pointed as he talked. "Xaldin," the man from the argument earlier, "Vexen," the man sitting at the table. At the sound of glass breaking, all eyes turned to the other two occupants of the kitchen. Xigbar's grin widened as he continued, "Axel," the red-haired man who was now regarding the broken glass with a startled look, "and Demyx," the blonde who, after one look at the scattered pieces of glass and the sugar, let out a wail of dismay before sinking to his knees.

Vexen gave Axel a look of great disdain and said, "Brilliant. _You_ explain to Lexaeus later."

Axel looked up and quickly defended himself. "Hey! It wasn't _my _fault! Demyx dropped it, not me!"

With a great pull, Xaldin pulled the weeping blonde to his feet and said, "It's just sugar. Stop getting so upset about it."

"But I didn't get any!" Demyx wailed.

"Which is a good thing, considering the fact that sugar makes you high."

Demyx ignored the other man and continued to weep for his loss. Xigbar chuckled and turned to face Luxord. "So, now that that's over and done with, what are you gonna eat?"

"Coffee."

This earned another chuckle. "You gonna _eat_ coffee? I've never tried that before. Anything else?"

Luxord shrugged, not really caring what he ate, so long as he got his coffee. Instead of answering, he moved towards the coffee pot–he spotted it only a few seconds ago–and asked, "Where do I get a mug?"

Xigbar pointed to a cupboard and sat down in his chair again. As Luxord moved to get himself a mug, he noticed that Demyx had stopped weeping and was now talking animatedly to Xaldin. It was quickly turning into another argument.

"But if I scoop some up and dump it in a mug, it'll still be sugar!"

Xaldin shook his head. "That's not the point. You're not supposed to take sugar."

Green eyes widened. "That's not what you said just now! You said I could have sugar!"

"That," he hesitated, "that–I didn't mean it. Forget I ever said that."

As Demyx started wailing again, Luxord took a tentative sip from his now coffee-filled mug. As he drank his coffee, a warm feeling made its way into his body. It had been so long since he last had good coffee; the coffee at the inn he had stayed at had tasted horrible. A now very frustrated Xaldin was glaring at a retreating Axel. "Axel, you're not leaving until you do something about this!"

Axel smirked and placed his hands on his hips. "Xaldin, Xaldin. You should know me well enough by now to know I'm not going to help you." With that, and a light wave, he quickly left the kitchen.

Letting out a growl, Xaldin grabbed Demyx roughly by his hood and said, "STOP IT! You keep this up and I'm taking you to see Saix!"

The noise ceased immediately. Absently, Luxord wondered if moments like this were normal occurrences. A voice spoke to him and he turned to face Vexen. "What kind of abilities do you have?"

That reminded him, Xemnas was supposed to get someone to help him. Shoulders lifted in a light shrug as he replied, "If I do have any, I don't know about them."

Not looking in the least bit surprised, Vexen returned to drinking his coffee in silence. In a way, Luxord was grateful he chose to stay silent, though he had to admit he was slightly offended. The answer he had given was apparently expected. Xigbar, however, opted for the opposite. "Really? Dude, I thought you knew! That means someone will have to help you figure it out, huh?" Xigbar's grin widened excitedly as he continued, "Maybe _I_ could help you."

Luxord hoped not. The prospect of spending probably hours with a man who irritated him as much as Xigbar did was _not_ his idea of a good way to begin his time here. He kept this to himself, however. Instead he said, "Is it possible for me to speak with Xemnas again?"

"Sure. I'll take you to there. Wouldn't want you getting lost again, now would we?" Xigbar got up and motioned for him to follow. Well, he should have expected Xigbar to offer to take him there. He rinsed his mug with water and left it in the sink before leaving the kitchen.

As they walked together–Xigbar leading and Luxord following–he realized Xigbar was once again silent. Now that he thought about it, Xigbar's silence yesterday was probably because of the Heartless. However, the silence didn't last very much longer, because Xigbar had started talking again.

"So, what do you think? So far?"

Luxord raised an eyebrow. "About what?"

"The castle, Xemnas, the other members, everything. What do you think about the whole idea?"

He considered this. He had done his best not to think too much about it; else he'd probably end up more confused than before. Xigbar was still waiting for his response, though, so he picked the first word he thought of. "It's ridiculous."

Xigbar burst out laughing, putting a hand on the wall for support. "Now why would you say that?"

Luxord had no idea, so he shrugged.

Straightening, Xigbar resumed walking. "Seriously? Or are you just too lazy to give me an answer? Xaldin does that sometimes; I'd ask him something and he'd either just shrug or say 'I don't know.'"

'Lazy?' He felt just the slightest bit insulted. "Maybe it's because _you_ asked him?"

This earned a chuckle from the gunner. "As if. Anyways, you seem to have adapted well. It's a good thing, I suppose. We had to put up with Demyx cross-examining every part of the castle and everyone in it for weeks. Suppose it wouldn't have been that bad, but he just wouldn't shut up. Saix had to lose his temper and whack him across the room before he stopped. See, Saix isn't a very calm guy to begin with, and Demyx should have taken the hint. Him snapping was expected."

"…" Luxord was at loss for something to say; what _could_ he say?

Xigbar turned his head to look back at him for a moment before facing forwards again. "Come on. You can't be totally question-less. There's got to be _something_ you want to know about."

He wasn't. In fact, he now had so many questions compared to the day before that he felt like he was getting another headache. He supposed it wouldn't hurt to ask. "How was the Organization formed? Who came up with the whole thing?" He suspected it was Xemnas, but he wanted confirmation.

"Well, the _whole_ plan was actually Xemnas's idea, but there were six people altogether when we started the Organization." He seemed pleased to carry on the conversation.

"Six?" This was shocking news.

"Yup." He counted them off his fingers. "Xemnas, me, Xaldin, Vexen, Lexaeus, and Zexion. We had different names back then, though."

"Different names?"

"You know, our original names. The names we used before we became Nobodies."

Luxord raised an eyebrow, curiosity getting the better of him. "What was yours?"

A smirk and a simple 'Not telling,' was the only response he got. That was fine with him; he'll get his answer a different time.

"How did you find this place? Did one of you make it?" 'Somehow,' he added silently.

Xigbar grinned. "As if. Coincidence, actually. We just walked around until we eventually bumped into each other and this castle."

"Just like that?"

By the time they reached Xemnas's room, Luxord had a new stack of information stored in his head. He had learned that this place, the World that Never Was, was the home of the Nobodies; a place that existed in between the light and the darkness. But because it was so close to the darkness, there were also Heartless wandering about. He found out that there were other types of Nobodies that were weaker in mind and had not maintained their human form. They were not official members of the Organization, taking orders from the stronger Nobodies. Other than that, Luxord had also gotten information on the members of the Organization.

Xemnas was Number I, the leader of the Organization. He gave out orders for the rest of the Organization to follow, and decided on their next action. Xigbar was Number II, Xaldin was Number III, Vexen was Number IV, Axel was Number VIII and Demyx was Number IX. Then there was Lexaeus, Zexion, and Saix, Number V, VI and VII respectively.

Apparently, they all had unique fighting skills. The past few months–Xigbar hadn't been sure how many months; it had been some time before they had managed to agree on a local time–had been spent gathering information from various worlds. Luxord now had confirmation that many other worlds existed out there. It was their job to scout around and gather information.

As they entered Xemnas's room, Luxord noticed an unfamiliar man talking to Xemnas. Their conversation had been interrupted when the door opened, though, and said man was now watching them. Xemnas turned to face Xigbar. "You didn't knock."

Xigbar shrugged, the smirk never leaving his face. "I forgot. Sorry." Then he greeted the other man, "Hey, Zexy."

The other man's eyes narrowed–well, Luxord could only see his left eye; the other eye was covered by his silver-ish blue hair–and said, "I told you to stop calling me that, Xigbar."

"Of course you did. Doesn't mean I have to listen to you, though."

If possible, the other man's eye narrowed further. "My name is _Zexion_. Not Zexy."

"Oh, right." He turned around to look at Luxord, who had been watching in silence. "Well, as he said, this is Zexion. You know, the puzzle-fanatic dude that's really fun to annoy I told you about earlier. This is him." He grinned.

Luxord looked at the other man. Zexion had a childish face, but Luxord suspected he didn't act like one. As opposed to Xigbar who, Luxord decided, had a rather childish personality. Zexion was regarding him with interest. "You're the new guy, I assume." At Luxord's slight nod, he turned to Xemnas and said, "We can continue this conversation some other time. I'll come back later."

"Perhaps it's better that way," was Xemnas's agreement. After Zexion had left, he said, "What is it?"

"Luxord wanted to see you."

"Oh?" He addressed Luxord. "Is there a problem?"

"Yesterday you said you would find someone to help me learn how to use my skills." Luxord still doubted he had any, but he was curious.

"Yes, that's right." Xemnas was silent for a moment. "Well, since it seems you have no idea whatsoever about your abilities, I have decided on Demyx as your partner."

'Demyx? That was the one who was wallowing in grief over spilled sugar, right?' This was unexpected, but he didn't question it. Xigbar said nothing either, so Luxord decided his statement earlier was more of a joke. He also decided there was no need to inform Xemnas that he had already met Demyx. "What exactly will we be doing?"

"I have already informed Number IX about what should be done. He should be able to tell you about it himself when you meet him later. I told him you'd be seeing him after you have had your breakfast. Is there anything else?"

"No."

"Xigbar should know where to find him. Now, I'm not asking you to rush, but it would be for the best if you learn how to control your abilities as soon as possible. Also, I have warned Demyx not to mess up, but he still might."

Luxord didn't say anything. There was something in his mind, an image so blurred he couldn't place it. It was because he was trying to figure out what exactly it was that he was caught off guard when Xigbar grabbed his left arm and pulled him towards the door. "Relax, dude. Don't worry about it; I'll watch them, so Demyx probably won't mess up too badly."

Once out of the room, Xigbar let go of his arm and turned to face Luxord. By then, Luxord had recovered enough to hide the surprise on his face with a blank expression. Xigbar said, "You okay?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Yes. Why?"

Xigbar smirked. "Nothing. You were spacing out just now, so I wondered." When Luxord didn't say anything he asked, "What were you thinking about?"

"What I think about is none of your concern."

"Hmph, fine." He started walking and Luxord did the same. After walking in silence for some time Xigbar said, "You don't seem too happy with Xemnas's choice. What's the matter? Got something against Demyx?"

He had absolutely nothing against the guy he had only met an hour or so ago. "No."

"Then?" Luxord remained silent. "Come on. I'm gonna keep pestering you until you tell me, so you might as well just tell me."

True, but Luxord didn't feel like sharing his thoughts with Xigbar. He was, however, forced to change his mind when Xigbar stayed true to his words. "Based on your description of Demyx, I'm not exactly looking forward to it."

Xigbar, who had grinned when he had succeeded in getting Luxord to talk, said, "You're worried about something like that? Dude, he's just a bouncy overly energetic squirrel of some sort."

Luxord suppressed an urge to laugh. Of all the things to pick, why on earth had Xigbar chosen a squirrel? Apparently, Luxord had not succeeded to hide his amusement entirely because a small smile had made it to his lips before Luxord could stop it. He turned his head to the right, trying to hide the smile while he worked on suppressing the laughter.

Unfortunately, Xigbar had caught the smile. He seemed genuinely pleased by this, as if making Luxord react was some sort of accomplishment. Luxord found out how true this was when Xigbar said, "Well, it's about time!"


	6. Hysteria

Just a little note here: I just wanted to say that I changed some bits in chapter 4 and fixed newly-found grammar mistakes. Just so you know, 'kay?

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter Six : Hysteria**

He wasn't very sure he wanted to do this. He had absolutely no idea how this was going to turn out, and that fact succeeded in further discouraging him from going along with this. Frankly, he was searching for a way out of the situation he was in.

Luxord was standing outside the castle. Xigbar was watching from his perch on one of the silent buildings, saying he'd get a better view from higher up. In front of Luxord stood a certain blonde-haired figure that they had spent the last few hours tracking down. More specifically, Demyx. Said man was grinning at him in a very excited but nervous way, as if this was the first time he ever did anything like this. Not that Luxord would be surprised if it was.

Some time ago, Luxord had returned to the kitchen with Xigbar in hopes of finding Number IX. Much to his chagrin, Number IX had apparently chosen to mope in a secluded corner somewhere in the unnecessarily large castle. Despite Xemnas saying Xigbar would know where to find Demyx, Luxord had spent hours with the other man looking for him. After some time was spent walking around aimlessly, Luxord had pointed out that it might be a better idea to ask if anyone had seen Demyx. Apparently, he found out later, that notion had never crossed Xigbar's mind.

After getting information on Demyx's whereabouts from a very unhelpful Axel and locating Demyx two floors above where they were told he would be, Xigbar had tackled said man and successfully pinned him to the ground.

"_Xigbar, he's suffocating." He pointed out, not really caring if Demyx did after the amount of walking they had had to do._

_The gunner looked up from the floor to glance at him before he eyed the man beneath him who was, true to Luxord's words, gasping for air. Xigbar got up and stood next to him, waiting for the blonde to catch his breath. When Demyx did, he looked at Xigbar. "What was that for?"_

_Xigbar pointed a finger at him. "You do that again, dude, and I'll fucking shoot you the next time. I **mean** it. You were supposed to look for Luxord after breakfast! We get back to the kitchen to find out you already disappeared, saying you were gonna keep yourself company with your fucking sitar! And then we had to spend hours trying to track you down, since your playing spots change almost every single time you go off to play! Did you completely forget or something?"_

_Idly, Luxord wondered why Xigbar was lecturing the other man–though he was content to let him do the lecturing; Luxord probably wouldn't have–since the gunner had seemed perfectly fine at the prospect of wandering around earlier. He had spent most of the time telling Luxord more about the other members of the Organization, pointing them out when they happened to past a member Luxord had not met yet. As a result, the only members Luxord had not met yet were Lexaeus who, he was told, was off on a mission and Saix, who had mysteriously disappeared._

"_Hey, wait a second. You're probably Number X, right? Man, this is so cool! I get to meet someone who wasn't in the Organization before me!" Demyx got up and flashed Luxord a grin. "I'm Demyx."_

_This was met with "I know." When Demyx didn't say anything he added, "We've met."_

_Demyx looked startled at this piece of information. Nervously, he said, "We…have?"_

_Xigbar whacked Demyx's head–the blonde let out a strangled "Ow!" and staggered forward slightly–before saying, "Duh. I introduced him to you in the kitchen this morning. Didn't you hear a single word?"_

_Rubbing the back of his head, he straightened and smiled sheepishly. "Really? Man, guess I didn't notice. Sorry. So, what's your name?"_

_He tilted his head slightly, wondering whether he should answer or ignore the question. Finally, he reluctantly said, "Luxord."_

_Demyx nodded enthusiastically. "Okay. Luxord. So, um…you guys were looking for me, right?"_

"_Yeah. Aren't you supposed to help Luxord figure out stuff?"_

"_I…was?"_

_Throwing his hands up into the air, the gunner walked away, choosing to lean his body against the wall instead of explaining._

_Luxord was starting to doubt Xemnas's decision-making capabilities. The guy standing in front of him seemed to have absolutely no idea what they were talking about. Closing his eyes for a moment as he stifled the urge to sigh in annoyance, Luxord said, "Xemnas said you're to help me figure out how to use my skills." He opened his eyes. "Remember?"_

_Apparently, Demyx did. "Oh, yeah! Man, I totally forgot about it." He grinned. "Can we start now?"_

_Luxord shrugged as Xigbar, his irritation showing, said, "Obviously we can start now. Why do you think we spent the whole damn morning looking for you?"_

"_Oh, right. Okay. Um…let's…go outside!"_

And he had ended up here, his clothes soaked due to the rain. After they reached here–he wasn't sure where 'here' was, somewhere in nowhere, probably–Demyx had told him what they were going to do. He had tried to explain but had not been doing a very good job of it, ending with Xigbar summing it all up for Luxord as "He'll attack, you defend." From what little bits he _had_ managed to grasp from Demyx's sorry excuse for an explanation, Luxord concluded that Demyx would be taking the offensive role. Apparently, Xemnas had decided the best way to go about this was to force his skills out; meaning Luxord would be forced to defend himself against Demyx's attacks.

This probably meant Luxord had to figure it out soon or he'll end up being pushed around by Demyx.

And that was the _last_ thing he needed to happen today.

Ignoring Xigbar's words–he had said, "I'll make sure nothing too serious happens, since you're new at this and all. Not like we're expecting you to be incredible at this or anything," before he moved up his building of choice, running on air as Luxord watched, silently fascinated–, Luxord regarded Demyx with a guarded expression as said man pulled out an unfamiliar looking object from the water–which had begun to gather around him–and said, "You ready, Luxord?"

Of course not. It wasn't like he spent every minute of his time fighting; he couldn't remember ever fighting before. But he didn't really have a choice right now, did he? Luxord watched Demyx's fingers move over the strings of his weapon of choice, still feeling a little uncomfortable about the whole thing. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but he was most definitely not expecting to be suddenly surrounded by water figures–which, on closer inspection, looked very similar to Demyx–, much less being attacked by one.

He stumbled backwards, more from shock than pain. The water figures danced about him before attacking him repeatedly as Luxord struggled to defend himself with his bare hands.

After a while the attacks ceased. Demyx moved closer to him and said, "Well, I'm not sure if this would work for you, but I thought I should tell you anyways." Luxord straightened to look at Demyx. "See, when I trained with Lexaeus, he told me to focus my energy into some sort of attack. Maybe you could, you know, try that?"

Luxord gave a slight nod but refused to say anything, lest he gave away the annoyance building inside of him, so Demyx moved back and formed more water clones. Luxord glanced at Xigbar before focusing on the clones' new wave of attacks, trying to think clearly as he protected himself. His mind was in a state of slight turmoil, and Luxord had to try hard to dismiss the panic that was slowly creeping into his mind as he frantically searched for some sort of clue as to what to do next.

Unable to think of anything, he only succeeded in growing more annoyed. Frustrated at his own helplessness, he swallowed a growl and searched his jacket for the deck of cards he had won back at the tavern a few days ago. Still having no idea what he was supposed to do–and feeling quite ridiculous about it–, Luxord picked the first card he managed to pull out and did the only thing he could think of; he flung the card at the nearest water clone.

Since he wasn't really expecting anything to happen, he wasn't really surprised when the card went right through the clone, not causing any damage whatsoever. He heard a familiar laugh and turned to look at Xigbar. Luxord could feel his face pull into a frown when he saw the gunner laughing, bristling at the thought of being someone's source of amusement.

Demyx told him to focus his energy into an attack. He wasn't sure how energy was supposed to feel like nor how he was supposed to focus it, but when he felt the sudden wave of restlessness wash over him, Luxord grabbed at the feeling and shoved. He felt his whole body tighten in response, every part of him tensing at the unfamiliar feeling. Purely on instinct, he grabbed another card from the deck in his pockets, pushed the static feeling into the card and felt something fall into place inside him.

Whirling around to face the figures standing behind him, he threw the card again, this time focusing his entire mind on the new feeling. To his complete surprise, the card he threw grew bigger right in front of him, multiplying its size until it was as big as Luxord. Adding more shock to his amazement, the card flew through the water clones standing in front of him, spinning as it caused the figures to burst like bubbles falling to the ground like rain. His eyes continued to follow the enlarged card, watching as it continued moving until it stopped and shrunk to its original size.

Silence fell and the only sounds Luxord could hear were his own breath and the rain hitting the ground. Demyx stared at him, his mouth hanging open slightly as he gazed at him, but Luxord wasn't paying attention to him. He felt his gaze hardened as he shot the gunner a glare, feeling satisfied at the surprised expression the other man's face. When he opened his mouth to speak, his words were cold. "Was _that_ good enough?"

He was rewarded with a mocking grin as Xigbar responded. "Well, it's a start."

Luxord wanted to hit him, _hard_. He had never felt as annoyed as he felt now, not even when Xemnas had first appeared and started this whole thing! Struggling to keep a blank expression on his face, Luxord turned to Demyx and said, "What now?"

He winced inwardly as the other blonde visibly flinched at his harsh tone. "Oh, well…um…I guess, I suppose we could try it again. You know, see if you could do it again." Realizing what he had just said, Demyx took a step back and hastily added, "Not that I'm saying you can't! I'm sure you can!"

Letting out a sigh, Luxord said in a more calm voice, "Okay."

As the water figures made another circle around him, Luxord searched for the feeling earlier. He found it again and channeled it into another card, this time finding the task slightly more difficult to accomplish. Nevertheless, the card mimicked the action of the card earlier as he watched it spin, its sharp edges slicing through Demyx's water clones.

They kept this up for some time. Luxord discovered various other things he could make his cards do–and when he had only 12 cards left, he threw one of his dices instead and marveled at the results–as Demyx continued to form more water clones to replace the ones that the gambler had destroyed. The whole time this was happening, Luxord could feel of Xigbar's gaze as the gunner watched silently from his spot. The intensity of his gaze made him shiver, but Luxord refused to give in to the temptation to meet the gunner's gaze.

It continued until Demyx announced that he was tired and asked if they could stop. Luxord was grateful for the chance to rest; his whole body felt tired. Feeling the sudden absence of the gaze, Luxord turned to find Xigbar moving towards them. His annoyance returned when the gunner clapped his hands, a smirk appearing on his scarred face. "Luxord, bravo. I seriously didn't think you'd get the hang of it so fast."

Xigbar's words made him unsure of how to respond; was he mocking him or did Xigbar really mean that as praise? Since he wasn't sure what were the right words to use here, Luxord decided to remain silent. The gunner merely grinned at his lack of response and turned to Demyx. As they started talking, Luxord started to lose focus. His vision blurred and cleared, giving him a headache.

'You have to stop this! This is pointless!"

He put one hand against the wall on his right, trying to clear his head. He didn't recognize the voice, but it felt familiar. Feeling dangerously close to falling, Luxord leaned his body slightly against the wall. The headache got worse, and now he could see almost nothing but a sickening mixture of colours.

'You can't keep winning forever! Stop this while you–'

'Arrogant bastard! Over-confidence will be–'

'We already have so much!'

He clutched his head with his free hand. Suddenly, whatever energy he felt he had left drained out of him and Luxord rested his body completely against the wall. The different voices came more rapidly and even more menacingly, sending waves of pain throughout his body.

'Mind my own _fucking business?_ What the fuck are–'

'–just causing unnecessary worries, what, with all–'

'It's a free country, man. Means I'm free to do as I please.'

'–_partners._ We're supposed to look out for–'

'_I've_ got the gun! Now just do what I–'

Luxord could vaguely feel himself sinking to the ground. His vision was a complete blur now, and he could feel himself panicking, his breath quickening. The voices were overlapping themselves now and he couldn't make out the words. He heard footsteps approaching him, but was too unfocused to register the concerned questions being sent his way. Luxord could do nothing but ignore the additional voices, concentrating more on keeping what little was left of his sanity intact.

Feeling sick in the stomach and dizzy, he tried to move, but gave up when it made everything worse. The panic was coming in full blow and somewhere along it Luxord recognized hysteria dancing on the edge, calling to him, as if willing him to give in. Everything hurt; his head felt like it was being cracked open. Giving up control of his mind seemed to be a very tempting option. Just as he was about to give up and reach out for the safety of insanity, he felt a hand on his back.

The last words he heard before his vision turned completely black were '_traitor_' and 'Luxord?'

**End of 6th chapter**

What do you think? The ending was completely unexpected. I had no idea it'd turn out like this but it did. I sort of liked it (though it's probably seriously lame), so I left it at that. Another note: I will not write a complete story on Luxord's past life. I'm only gonna put in little bits every now and then, unless I change my mind. Reasons are because I wasn't sure what to make it without making it lame, and because I think I prefer to write just vague hints.

Thank for your time. Also, please tell me what you think about this. I need to know. Thank you very much.


	7. Coffee for Two

What I meant by only writing little bits of Luxord's past was that he will remember, but I won't elaborate on it. And thank you tsukai-kaze for pointing out my MAJOR mistake. I can't believe I missed that. I've fixed it, sort of. Thanks again!

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter 7 : Coffee for Two**

Luxord woke up to a headache, buzzing on the edge of his mind. He sat up and found himself on his bed. Looking around, he tried to remember why. Oddly enough, the last thing he could remember doing was training with Demyx, which didn't exactly answer his question.

'How did I get here?'

Despite thinking as hard as he could, he still found no answer. Not being able to recall what happened frustrated him. 'Xigbar and Demyx were there. Perhaps I could ask them.'

He stood up and had walked to the door. Recalling the directions Xigbar had given him yesterday, he made his way to the kitchen. While walking, he tried again to figure out what happened during the blank part of his memory.

Demyx had asked for a break, complaining about being too tired from making the water clones to continue any longer. Probably hearing the announcement, Xigbar had come down from his perch. After speaking to Luxord–'Luxord, bravo. I seriously didn't think you'd get the hang of it so fast,' were his exact words, if Luxord remembered correctly–he had turned to discuss something with Demyx. Not being very interested in the conversation, Luxord hadn't bothered to listen to them.

That part was quite clear. The events that had taken place before they had started training were also clear to him. It was after they had stopped for a rest that bothered him.

He couldn't remember anything that happened after stopping. His memory seemed to jump from there straight to waking up today. In between it was a large gap of nothing that worried Luxord. It was definitely normal to forget things, but he highly doubted forgetting events for such a long length of time could be considered normal. There weren't even any bits of memories he could find.

Nothing but nothing.

Luxord looked around and found himself in the kitchen. Apparently, he had managed to find his way to the kitchen despite being so lost in thought. This couldn't be a good thing, especially since yesterday he had spent hours–he assumed–getting lost on his way to the kitchen. Luxord could have dismissed this as good fortune, but he was feeling rather edgy today. Dismissing it so easily seemed a foolish thing to do.

He found a coffee pot half-emptied on the cabinet next to the refrigerator. Touching the glass and finding it still warm, he moved to get a mug and poured himself some of the coffee. He took a few sips of it and immediately felt better, some of his headache fading away. Seating himself at the table, Luxord drank a few gulps of hot liquid, appreciating the way it made the last of his headaches disappear.

The temporary peace Luxord had found was disturbed when a white figure entered the kitchen. He didn't jerked back from it, but he eyed it warily, watching silently as it swayed from side to side. Obviously finding this stranger odd, Luxord remained in his seat and waited for the creature to make its next move. The white creature moved around the kitchen but didn't make any move to come closer, appearing harmless.

Finding nothing to worry about yet, he allowed himself to relax as he studied the strange figure. It was most definitely not like anything he could remember seeing before, but he didn't find its presence a threat. He lifted his mug to his lips, still eyeing the creature and drank a bit more coffee.

"Relax, dude. It's not going to kill you or anything."

Luxord turned to the source of the voice and found Xigbar. He lowered his mug as Xigbar moved to get himself coffee, seeming not in the least bit bothered by the white creature as it continued to sway, keeping what seemed like a respectful distance from the gunner.

Sitting opposite of him, Xigbar took a large gulp of coffee before saying, "So you're coffee's perfectly safe. No worries."

Raising an eyebrow at the odd comment, Luxord said, "My coffee?"

"–Is perfectly safe. No worries," he repeated and grinned. "From the way you were staring at it, it looked like you thought it was gonna steal your coffee or something. I bet you were."

Luxord glared at the offender in front of him. "It is unwise to place bets you're not sure you can win."

Xigbar laughed. "And you'd know all there is to know about bets, huh?"

He decided to ignore the gunner's remark. Instead he asked, "What happened yesterday?"

The laughter stopped and Xigbar regarded him with a curious look. "What do you _remember_ about yesterday?"

"That's not an answer."

"Neither is that."

"I asked the question first."

"You also got here first, and got coffee first, and sat down before me. Did you wake up before me as well?"

He felt a spark of annoyance at the other man's easy evasion of his question. Seeing no other way of getting his answers, he relented. "Not very much."

The gunner grinned in triumph. "How much?"

"I can recall the training with Demyx and you two discussing something."

Xigbar considered this. "Is that it?"

He nodded once.

"That's it, huh?" Xigbar seemed to be thinking about something, falling silent as he lost himself in thought.

Luxord watched the swaying figure make its way out of the kitchen, taking wide steps as it slowly walked out. He returned his attention to Xigbar. "What happened?"

Fixing Luxord with an unreadable gaze, Xigbar said, "You tell me."

Xigbar's words were unexpected, leaving Luxord speechless for a moment. As Xigbar took a few more gulps from his coffee, Luxord spoke. "What do you mean?"

The gunner shrugged. "I can't tell you what I don't know. So you'll have to tell me."

Funny. Lately, getting annoyed proved to be no challenge for him; all he had to do was talk to Xigbar. "If I knew what happened yesterday, I wouldn't have asked you."

Xigbar grinned. "Fine," he said as he set his mug on the table. "Look, I'm not completely sure of this but I think you were having a fit."

Luxord stared at the other man. "…what?"

"Of course, this is just a theory. It's not like I know for sure. But," he poked his mug, "it fits. Better, at least, than Vexen's theory. That guy started rambling about something like 'defect' and 'rejecting the nature of being a Nobody' and stuff,"

"Wait." 'A fit? Theory?' "You're not making sense."

Xigbar's expression turned serious again. "Did you see anything? Like images you couldn't place but seemed familiar. Or maybe voices. Anything like that? Or maybe you own thoughts or…" he trailed off.

"I don't recall anything of that sort. There's just a blank in memory."

Xigbar gave him a smirk. "That probably means you don't remember how you got back to your room, right?"

That was of no importance to their discussion but Luxord _did_ want confirmation. "How did I get back to my room?"

The other man's smirk grew bigger, if possible, as he answered. "I carried you there, of course. We couldn't exactly leave you out there yesterday with all the Heartless around. Now, aren't you grateful?"

Luxord had guessed that was what happened and the thought made him just a little uncomfortable. Instead he opted for a different topic. "You mentioned a theory earlier. What exactly _is_ your theory?"

He grinned, as if expecting the change of topic. He didn't push it, though, and answered Luxord instead. "Glad you decided to ask." Leaning back, he tilted his chair slightly, balancing carefully. "My theory is that you were remembering something from your past life. As in the life you were living before you became a Nobody. There's no proof yet, since you can't remember what happened yesterday and all, but I'm pretty sure I'm right."

Luxord considered this, absently wondering if he should be glad that his memories were returning or worried. "Did you experience something like this too?"

"As if! I remembered my other life perfectly well the minute I woke up, so I don't see why I should."

This was a surprise. "You do?"

"So did the other first five members of the Organization."

"Why?"

"Not much of a reason. We just did. Most of the guys that came here after the Organization was formed already remember most of their memories. Some of them remembered straight away like Axel. Some of them had to work with bits of their memories, piecing them together to get the bigger picture. For example, Saix still doesn't remember everything, though he claims to not need to remember anymore. You know, Lexaeus found him wandering around one of the worlds he went to and brought him back. Xemnas took one look at him and declared he'd make a 'very useful ally' and he became one," Xigbar snapped his fingers, "Just like that."

"I see." This was an interesting theory. "What was it like before this?"

Xigbar blinked. "What?"

"What kind of life were you leading before this happened?"

He tilted his head, regarding Luxord with a smirk. "And _why_ would you want to know that?"

'Why indeed?' Luxord supposed it was because he didn't have very much information on the origins of the Organization. All he had were little facts he had collected from Xigbar and Xemnas. "I'm interested in finding out how this all began."

There was a moment of silence before Xigbar finally responded, grinning as he said, "You know what I think, Luxord? I think you would've made a pretty good scientist."

The easy statement caught him off guard. Luxord tilted his head slightly. "Why do you say that?"

He shrugged. "Why not? Besides, I've got my reasons."

Luxord was about to enquire more about the gunner's statement before he realized the other man had avoided his question, _again._ He felt annoyed, seeing as how it was Xigbar that encouraged conversation during the times they've spent together. Luxord hid his annoyance as he said, "You didn't answer my question."

The gunner's smirk grew wider. "I'm not going to."

"Why not?"

"I don't feel like it. Besides, it's not like there's anything in it for me."

Luxord resisted the urge to kick him–it wouldn't take very much effort–and searched for a different question. Since it was obvious Xigbar wasn't going to be giving him any answers any time soon, he'd find a different way to get them. Remembering the scene he had witnessed the first time he arrived here, Luxord said, "That gun you were using when you were fighting the Heartless, on the day you first brought me here."

Xigbar raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Yeah. What about it?"

"Were you hiding it? Or did you make it come out when the battle started?"

The other man chuckled. "I suppose you're _interested_ in that, too?"

Luxord remained silent.

Instead of answering his question, Xigbar held out his right hand. The area around his outstretched hand seemed to glow for a while before a gun appeared in it. He put it down on the table in front of him and looked at Luxord.

Luxord was looking at the gun as he considered what he had just witnessed. Xigbar had just made his weapon appear. Demyx had used water but the musical instrument he was using as a weapon also appeared when summoned. It made Luxord wonder if he could do it too, since he was obviously expected to participate in fights as soon as he could.

The notion of fighting hadn't really bothered him. In fact, it was almost welcomed. Fighting seemed like a normal thing to do, which was a good thing when Luxord found himself suddenly surrounded with strange facts. He was still trying to come to terms about what it meant to be a Nobody; there were still some parts of the whole idea that he found questionable, like the lack of hearts equals to lack of emotion theory. He had confirmed it after overhearing an argument between Zexion and Vexen yesterday.

Nobodies, Heartless, Kingdom Hearts, the Keyblade and its Chosen One, losing the heart and what it would take to get it back; there was so much to think about, but every time Luxord started sorting out his thoughts he ran straight into a whirlwind of questions he couldn't answer. After a few unsuccessful tries, Luxord had decided to leave the questions alone for the time being. He'll try again when he managed to gather more information.

So really, to Luxord, fighting seemed like a pretty normal thing to do now. But he couldn't fight using his deck of cards forever; he'll eventually run out cards and that would be the end of it. It occurred to him during the fight yesterday, that if the others could form their own weapons whenever the want to, perhaps he could do the same. All he had to figure out was how to go about doing it.

"You done staring at it yet?"

Luxord looked up to meet the gunner's–sniper's, he supposed; it seemed to fit the other man better than its predecessor–gaze. "How do you do it?"

He didn't look surprised. "I figured you'd ask about it sooner or later. Demyx pretty much did the same thing, only he kept on about it for hours. When he finally did manage to make that sitar of his I was pretty grateful. After he made it the first time I left." Xigbar grinned. "Better than staying around to find out if he could do it a second time or not."

Apparently, responding to questions with answers that had almost _nothing_ to do with the original question was a hobby of Xigbar's. He repeated his question, "How do you do it?"

"Same way you made your cards bigger yesterday." The gun on the table disappeared. "You just concentrate your energy into it and…" the gun reappeared in his hand. "…you've done it." Xigbar looked at Luxord, as if waiting for him to do it himself.

It made Luxord wonder if he could really do it. Trying to gather his energy the way he had learned to do yesterday, he focused it into his right palm. His skin tingled for a moment but nothing happened. Well, he didn't really expect to succeed on his first try. He would have stopped there and left to find a more secluded place if Xigbar wasn't still sitting in front of him, waiting expectantly.

He tried again, concentrating a little harder. The restlessness that now seemed to exist permanently in him–like a door that can't be closed once opened–grew bigger and he imagined it in his palm, twirling silently around in a circle. Next, he imagined the circle forming a card, deciding on the two of hearts. The tingling in his skin returned and he felt a card in his palm.

Surprised at such a quick success and sure something had gone wrong with the little experiment, he examined the card, turning over as he scrutinized it. It looked like a card. It was the two of hearts. The back of the card was completely white since he hadn't really thought of a background for it. Satisfied that it really was a card, he placed it on the table in front of him.

Apparently, imagining worked.

"You'll have to keep focusing on it to keep it there, though. If you lose concentration, it'll probably just disappear." Xigbar didn't sound in the least bit surprised at Luxord's choice.

Just to see what would happen, Luxord allowed himself to think about something else. The card on the table glowed slightly before disappearing, fading away and proving Xigbar's words to be true. He decided to try again, this time forming a whole deck of cards in lieu of just one. It took a lot more effort and concentration, but he was rewarded with a whole deck of cards looking the way he had pictured it in his mind and a warm feeling of satisfaction.

He counted them before he placed the newly formed deck on the table, totaling everything to be 52 pieces. He watched silently as Xigbar reached over the table for some of the cards, neatly cutting the stack by a quarter or so. Luxord picked up the topmost card and examined it.

Coincidentally, it was the two of hearts. The only difference was that its back was patterned this time. Turing it over to regard the patterns decorated all over the card, he wondered what the odd symbol was supposed to mean.

"What does this symbol represent?" he asked the man opposite him.

Xigbar looked up from where he was studying the cards in his hands. "You mean you didn't know?"

"No."

"Then why'd you put it on your cards?"

Luxord gave a light shrug, watching as some of the cards floated up as he played with it, making them turn around in a circle. "It's decorated all over the castle."

Xigbar watched the cards with interest. "This," he held up a card so that the back of it was facing Luxord, "is _our_ symbol. As in, the symbol of the Nobodies."

He should have guessed. Luxord added more cards to the spinning circle, trying to find the limit of what he could make the cards do. "Did Xemnas decide on that?"

"Sort of. Not like he had much of a choice. This whole place already had those symbols on it when we found it, so Xemnas decided to go on ahead and use it."

Xigbar's words reminded Luxord of his earlier thoughts. "How did you find this place?"

The other man smirked and said, "I told you already. There's nothing in it for me."

"Then, let us make a bet." Luxord, succeeding in pushing the conversation back to where he wanted, called the cards silently. He watched them fly into his palm, feeling a small amount of satisfaction at being able to move them so easily. He shuffled them with his hands, enjoying the feeling of the smooth cards as they pressed into his fingers and palm and looked at Xigbar. This was his field now. "If I win, you must answer three of my questions." Xigbar didn't seem like the type of person to back down from a challenge, even if the other man should know perfectly well Luxord never lost.

Xigbar leaned back into his chair again. "A bet, huh? Okay, I'll play. But if I win, you have to answer three of _my_ questions."

He finished shuffling and said, "Poker, then?" At the other man's nod, he dealt out five cards each. Luxord wasn't worried. He supposed he shouldn't be too confident, but he was quite sure of the outcome. There was no way he'd lose. He placed the deck down and picked up his hand, finding a straight flush. Luxord looked at Xigbar, noticing his emotions clearly written on his face, like an open book for Luxord to read. He assumed the hand he had received wasn't a very good one, further convincing Luxord of his win.

For as long as he could remember, his cards were the only things familiar to him. Ever since he woke up to find himself in the darkness, he had found a great many things to question. There were too many questions, some with answers that left him feeling uneasy and some with no answers at all. Added to that, he couldn't remember anything about a life before the darkness. The constant presence of questions and lack of answers as well as memories would have driven him insane, if he hadn't found something else to focus on.

Because of that, he was grateful for the familiarity of the cards. He was grateful that he had found something to hold on to, distracting him from the turmoil in his mind. It filled the part of him that had been left empty–the part of him that missed his heart, probably–; lessening the gaping hole he was so accustomed to feeling lately.

Maybe it was because of the security his cards provided him, or maybe it was because gambling came naturally to him and was his source of money and entertainment back in the town. Whatever it was, his cards were everything to him. They were his pride, his art.

His passion.

Luxord could not recall ever losing. He always won the games he played, and he wasn't going to start losing now. Frankly, he wasn't sure _what_ he would think of himself if he lost to Xigbar.

When the other man placed his hand on the table, Luxord did the same. Seeing the frown on the sniper's face, Luxord couldn't help but smile He allowed it to stay on his face for only a short moment, not wanting Xigbar to see it. The other man switched his gaze from the cards on the table to Luxord, still frowning at having to admit defeat. "Fine, you win. Go ahead and ask your three damn questions."

It made victory all the more pleasant for Luxord.

**End of 7th Chapter**

How was it? Okay, or really bad? I'm not sure how this chapter's ending came around either but it ended up like this. I hope you people like it. Please feel free to let me know your opinions on this. It'll be very much appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to read this.


	8. Not Too Bad

I just want to say thank you very much again for your reviews, you guys! It really means a lot! I'm also sorry for not having any new chapters last week; I was writing another fic–_12 Hours Tops_. If you haven't read it yet and you have a lot of time to spare and you're really bored then give it a go. It's complete crap though, so beware–and I couldn't concentrate on this.

But now it's finished and I'm back with this and I can't wait for the whole thing to just start. There's so much to write but it's all for later on–in fact, I'm getting ideas of what to write after I finish this and I highly doubt this thing is even halfway through yet–and I'm completely idealess for now. I'll still do my best though, and this story will finish right–I hope–and it will be finished or I'll die trying! So, bear with me…

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter Eight : Not So Bad**

Luxord played five more games with Xigbar before the sniper had accused Luxord of being a cheater, slamming his hand onto the table. At the other man's accusation, Luxord had managed to remain expressionless, though it was taking a surprising amount of willpower not to laugh. He had expected this outburst from the minute he had seen Xigbar's increasingly frustrated expression as they played.

With a slight flick of his hand, the cards flew into his palm, neatly arranging themselves in a stack. It was getting easier to control the cards. "I do not cheat, Xigbar. You were just blessed with bad luck."

Xigbar crossed his arms and glared at him. "Liar."

Still hiding his amusement–Luxord was enjoying every minute of this–, he scanned his mind for his next three questions. So far, he had learned that the first six members of the Organization had all been apprentices of someone called Ansem the Wise. They were studying various fields of knowledge, each one having their own personal favorite and specialties. Apparently, an experiment–what experiment, exactly, he didn't ask–gone wrong had resulted in an explosion and waking up to find themselves in the Dark City–Zexion had named it–and had walked for hours until they eventually found each other and this castle.

They spent a few days debating what had really taken place and where they were. After exchanging various theories on the situation they were in with each other, Xemnas had come up with the whole Nobodies theory. It had made sense except for certain parts that were questionable, so they had mostly accepted the theory to be the truth. Some time after that Xemnas had declared they could recover their lost hearts by obtaining hearts from Kingdom Hearts and it mostly just continued in more research, discovering the doorways and scouting other worlds.

After that, the Organization slowly started to grow in number. The places the additional members were discovered varied; some were found here in the World That Never Was, while some were found wandering around in other worlds, like himself. Luxord would have liked to learn know more about the whole thing, but he had run out of questions then.

Now he had three more.

He looked at Xigbar–who was now sitting in silence as he waited–and asked, "What will happen once we acquire hearts?"

"Who knows? Xaldin thinks we'd probably turn back into the people we were before we became Nobodies," he answered, sullenly.

"Will we remember being a Nobody?"

"I don't know. Maybe we would, maybe we wouldn't." He grinned. "That's your second question. Last one, now."

Luxord knew this, but he didn't say anything. After a few minutes of silence he said, "The creature just now, what was it?"

Xigbar raised any eyebrow. "Oh, that? That's the lower-ranking Nobody I told you about."

"It was?" Luxord asked, surprised. "What's the difference between the lower-ranked Nobodies and us, other than our appearances?"

He didn't get an answer immediately as Xigbar offered him a smirk, saying, "Hey, you already ran out of questions. I don't have to answer that." He leaned back in his chair, one arm dangling behind it. "But I'll tell you anyways. The difference is how strong our minds are. See, we're Nobodies that remember who we are, but he's a Dusk. Dusks don't remember anything from the time before they became Nobodies. All the other lower ranked Nobodies are like that, though we call the ones that look different with different names." He paused for a while before continuing. "At least, that's what Xemnas said. I suppose it does kind of make sense."

Luxord considered this new information. It was interesting and he'd have to look out for more of these lower ranked Nobodies. He shuffled the cards absently, mind wandering for a moment before he looked at Xigbar. "Another game?"

Xigbar hastily got up; pushing the chair back with so much force it almost toppled over. "Hell no! I'm not playing another game of fucking poker with you!"

The amusement returned and Luxord could feel the smile threatening to come out. "A different game then?"

"No! I'm never playing card games with you ever again!"

He seriously doubted that; from what he had gathered, a few carefully chosen words should suffice in pushing the other man into another game. "Are you absolutely sure about that, Xigbar?"

The sniper walked to the refrigerator and opened it, staring at the contents in silence before answering. "Well, maybe I might," he admitted, "But not today. Some other day, some other time."

Luxord could live with that. He allowed the cards to disappear, and glanced at kitchen doorways. "Where are the others?"

Xigbar kicked the refrigerator door closed. "Asleep? Awake? Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Am I still training with Demyx today? Or is he needed elsewhere?"

"Oh, that." He walked back to the table and sat down. "I think Xemnas gave him a mission to do today. Checking up on things in one of the worlds something. It shouldn't take long though, but he'll probably be gone the whole morning."

Luxord wondered what he should do now. Xigbar wouldn't play cards with him, and Demyx wasn't here. That left him with almost nothing to do for the rest of the day.

"I could train with you, if you want."

He looked at Xigbar, surprised at the offer.

The sniper just shrugged. "What? It's not like I have anything else to do for the rest of the day."

Not seeing a reason to not accept the offer, Luxord agreed. "Alright. Shall we move to yesterday's training grounds?"

Xigbar grinned and got up. Luxord followed suit and walked next to Xigbar as they left the kitchen. The silence that had settled since the walk began was broken when Xigbar said, "Can you remember what it felt like yesterday?"

Luxord glanced at him. "No. I already told you, there's nothing but a blank in my memory."

To which Xigbar responded with a simple "Hmm," before moving on to a different subject. "How long do you think it'll be before Xemnas decides to send you on your first mission?"

He wanted to know too. "I don't know. It probably depends on how fast I master my abilities, right? Besides, shouldn't you have the answer?"

The sniper grinned. "Right on. It's different for everybody. Demyx needed a couple of weeks, but Saix went on his first mission two days after we found him."

They were passing through familiar places now, though Luxord couldn't place them yet; he still had not managed to memorize the layout of the castle yet. There were still a few more questions he wanted to ask, and even though Xigbar might not want to answer them, he decided to ask anyways. "What was the experiment you and the others were conducting that started all this?"

Xigbar cocked his head. "I thought we agreed that I would only have to answer your questions if you win."

"We never reached such an agreement. Our agreement was that the loser of the card games has to answer three of the winner's questions. There was no mention of not asking questions at other times."

He was silent for a moment. Then he grinned again and said, "You clever little sneak. That's cheating and you know it!"

Luxord figured he could take that as progress; it meant he was getting better at playing these word games. "It's not cheating. You never mentioned it."

"Hah! I bet you really _were_ cheating during poker just now! You were weren't you?"

Xigbar's accusation didn't sound much like one to Luxord–in his opinion, it was lacking the right tones–and Luxord was less sure that today was going to go wrong somehow and feeling slightly better by now–the card games earlier had proven to be just the thing he needed, and the winning part was always welcomed–so Luxord decided to play along. "It seems I must admit to being guilty." He fixed Xigbar a serious look. "I _did_ cheat just now."

The other man's grin grew wider. "I knew it! You totally cheated, dude!" He pointed a finger in Luxord's direction. "So, what did you do?"

Still keeping the serious expression on his face, Luxord said, "_I_ gave you bad luck."

Xigbar blinked. "…huh?"

Speaking seriously, Luxord continued. "I happen to know of a certain jinxing spell. This spell allows me to cast bad luck on who ever I choose, allowing me to constantly win all the card games I play. So you see, you really did have incredibly bad luck just now."

He was silent for a moment before bursting out laughing. Luxord stopped walking and waited for the other man to finish. Xigbar looked up and said, "Well, what do you know. Luxord has a sense of humor."

Luxord crossed his arms. "A truly intriguing discovery."

"No, seriously. I didn't think you knew the meaning of humor; you never laugh at my jokes."

"Your jokes are not funny." He started walking again.

Xigbar said, "Why Luxord, was that an insult? I think I'm hurt." He fell into step next to Luxord, his face wearing a slight smirk. "It's just that you never showed any humor before."

"Just because you've never seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

He grinned again. "Seeing is believing. Besides, you don't look like the type of person with a sense of humor."

Luxord resisted the urge to respond to that and settled for a short glare in Xigbar's direction. If Xigbar saw the glare he didn't say anything about it. Instead they continued to walk in silence until they reached their destination. Coming to a stop, Luxord said, "What will we be doing?"

Xigbar turned to look at him. "Mostly the same thing as yesterday, I suppose. You defend, I attack. Only you won't have any water clones to behead and stuff."

He nodded and Xigbar walked past him. Stopping some distance away from Luxord, he summoned his guns and said, "Ready?"

Luxord had a feeling the other man wasn't exactly waiting for a response, so he summoned a card and enlarged it in lieu of answering. It appeared to be the right thing to have done because a mere second later shots were fired in his direction. The card blocked the glowing bullets and Luxord immediately called out more cards. He looked for Xigbar–who had disappeared the moment the battle began–, keeping his guard up for any surprise attacks.

"Heads up!"

Turning around immediately at the sound of Xigbar's voice, Luxord formed another card in front of him. As the cards blocked the new wave of shots, Luxord moved back slightly, his cards moving with him. The sniper disappeared again and reappeared to Luxord's right. The cards moved in front of him, successfully blocking the bullets again and Luxord moved away from Xigbar.

The battle proceeded like this, with Xigbar firing a dozen shots or so in his direction in one go and him blocking it and moving away. They came to a stop when Xigbar fired a huge fiery bullet and catching him by surprise. A card moved in its way, blocking it but said card disappeared after card and bullet came in contact. Luxord was surprised at the sudden disappearance and eyed the sniper cautiously, waiting for his next move.

Xigbar, however, had chosen to sit down on the ground, leaning against a nearby wall after allowing his guns to disappear. He grinned and beckoned Luxord over. Luxord raised an eyebrow at this but walked towards the other man all the same.

Once he had sat down next to Xigbar, the sniper said, "For someone who only discovered his powers yesterday, you have a lot of stamina. I'm exhausted already."

He rested his head against the wall. "Perhaps it's because I don't move around as much as you do?"

Xigbar chuckled. "Probably. It was fun, though. Wanna have another go tomorrow?"

He considered this, wondering what Demyx and Xemnas would say. But then again, Demyx wasn't nearly as challenging as Xigbar was and Xemnas would probably have no objections, so long as he mastered his abilities soon. "I don't see why not."

This earned a grin from the other man. "Tomorrow then," he announced and fell silent, looking up at the sky.

Luxord looked up too, taking in the various shades of dark colors as he absently wondered if this place ever had mornings. The sky still looked the same as yesterday; the only difference was that it wasn't raining today. The stars, too, were still there, some shining brighter than the others.

"So many worlds."

At the softly spoken words, Luxord looked at Xigbar, but said man continued to stare at the sky. "What do you mean?"

The sniper lifted a hand and pointed at the sky. "Those. There're so many worlds out there."

Luxord returned his attention to the stars. 'The stars are worlds?' He asked, "What of them?"

"A whole lot of hearts to take."

Luxord remained silent.

Next to him, Xigbar stood up, his voice returning to normal as he said, "Well, I don't about you, but I'm feeling hungry. Just coffee for breakfast isn't exactly very filling."

He got up too and said to Xigbar, "No one stopped you from eating."

"Aren't you hungry?" he asked.

Luxord didn't say anything, not wanting to admit that his stomach was, in fact, feeling quite empty.

The other man just shrugged at his lack of response. "Anyways, I'm hungry so I'm going to head back to the kitchen to actually eat something. You coming?"

Seeing as how he had nothing else to do and he didn't exactly feel like going back to his room to do nothing, Luxord agreed. Xigbar grinned and started walking towards the castle, and Luxord walked beside him, remembering the uneasy feeling he had in the kitchen and thinking this day might not turn out so bad after all.

**End of 8th chapter**

Finished! Man, this sucky chapter was so hard to write. It kind of feels weird to be writing this now instead of trying to come up with more ways to make the Organization sound insane.

Sorry for the wait (if there was a wait). Also, sorry if this chapter was disappointing, because it sounds like it is. Let me know what you think of this chapter, okay?


	9. Familiar Feeling

Pardon my mistakes and typos, 'kay? And feel free to point out any other big mistakes. Okay, ninth chapter, here we go.

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter Nine : Familiar Feeling**

'Today might not turn out too bad after all,' were Luxord's thoughts an hour or so earlier. He had really believed it then, not seeing anything too bad occurring in the near future.

It just goes to show that thinking positively is an absolutely idiotic waste of time.

"I'm _really_ sorry, Luxord! It was an accident! I didn't mean it!"

'Of course it was an accident. Why _else_ would you have done it?' Luxord thought.

"Yeah. It was totally Demyx's fault. I had nothing to do with it."

"Axel! It was your fault too and you know it! You have to apologize too!"

"No way. _I_ wasn't the one who flooded the kitchen."

"But if you hadn't provoked me, it wouldn't have happened! Everyone knows I don't have complete control over water yet!"

"If you knew something like this might have happened, then why'd you do it anyways?"

"Because you ate the last cookie!"

"Well, that clears things up," the red-haired man said dryly. "It's completely fine for you to flood the kitchen if I eat the last cookie."

"Axel!" Green eyes turned to him as the musician spun around and apologized again. "I'm really sorry, Luxord! Really sorry!"

Luxord let out a sigh, forcing himself to maintain a blank expression. When he felt he could talk without giving away his murderous thoughts he said, "Don't worry about it."

Demyx stopped apologizing. "So…you're not mad?"

He was having trouble keeping his face expressionless; standing in the middle of the kitchen soaking wet because an argument turned violent caused a sudden flash flood in the kitchen was neither a normal nor a very tolerable occurrence. It certainly didn't help things that the only other person in the kitchen was still laughing hysterically.

Pausing in his laughing fit, Xigbar looked at Luxord, his words coming out in gasps due to lack of air. "Dude," he said, two hands clutching his middle, "you…should have…seen…your face. It was…freaking…hilarious!"

Luxord glared at the sniper, mentally cursing the other man for having moved in time to avoid the water. "It's not funny, Xigbar."

The other man merely resumed laughing and Luxord had to bite back his next words. Demyx still seemed anxious, fidgeting slightly, but Axel didn't seem in the least bit apologetic. In fact, the red-haired man had summoned a portal next to him, probably planning on leaving before anything else happened. Before stepping into the portal, Axel turned to Demyx and said, "You should probably go explain this to Xemnas, though. He won't be happy to find out you flooded the kitchen, but, better he hear it from you then from someone else." Then he turned around and vanished in the swirling darkness.

Axel's words had succeeded in increasing Demyx's worry; now the blonde musician was looking near panicked. Clutching his head with both his hands, Demyx said, "Man, this is so unfair. The one time I get through a mission without screwing it up I get into trouble before I even report." He lowered his hands and faced Luxord. "I'm really sorry, okay? It won't happen again."

Still concentrating on not murdering the one who had started all of this or the one that had not bothered to warn him before it happened, Luxord said, "That would be for the best."

Demyx smiled sheepishly before he too, vanished into a portal. Luxord turned to look at the sniper–whose laughter had been reduced to muffled sounds–and crossed his arms, doing his best not to shiver from the cold. Deciding the best thing to do now would be to return to his room and wait for his clothes to dry, Luxord turned to leave without another word.

Xigbar looked up at the sound of his footsteps, pausing for only a short moment before following. As the other man fell into step next to him, Luxord noticed the grin on the sniper's face. His annoyance increased, and he said, "If you're going to continue to laugh, I ask that you do it somewhere else."

Letting out a short bout of laughter, Xigbar said, "Oh, come on, dude. You've got to admit, it was pretty funny."

"I have no desire to hear how hilarious my getting soaked by a guitarist was."

"Actually, Demyx is a sitar-ist. He said the thingy he plays is a sitar."

Luxord stored that piece of information. "Don't you have anything better to do, other than laugh at my expense, to occupy your attention?"

The sniper grinned at him. "Sure, I do. I could go bother Xaldin, annoy Zexion, or go bully Demyx after he's done reporting. It's just that this is way more fun."

He ignored Xigbar.

When he received no response, Xigbar said, "Demyx _did_ apologize, you know, so you don't have to worry about the others finding out. It's not like he'll run around the castle yelling, 'Luxord got soaked in the kitchen because I didn't get my cookie!'"

It wasn't like he was still angry at the musician; in fact, he was angrier at Xigbar than at Demyx. He had never liked surprises to begin with, and Xigbar laughing at him didn't do anything to help. He saw no need to voice out his thoughts, however, so Luxord continued to ignore Xigbar.

"Dude, you are so uptight. Someone should teach you how to loosen up."

"Is that not expected? Seeing as how we're supposedly beings with neither hearts nor emotions, isn't it normal?"

He crossed his arms, wearing an expression of mocked hurt. "Are you saying I'm not normal?"

"Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying."

Xigbar didn't say anything for a moment and silence descended. Luxord was in the middle of wondering what exactly he was supposed to do while he waited for his clothes to dry when Xigbar said, "Do you really believe that?"

Pulled away from his thoughts, Luxord said, "Believe what?"

"Believe that we can't feel anything."

Luxord raised an eyebrow at the odd question, "Was that not what Xemnas said?"

The other man just shrugged and didn't say anything else, so Luxord didn't pursue the conversation any further. He could see the rooms now, and his thoughts lifted at the notion of getting out of the cold wet clothes. He moved to his room and was surprised when Xigbar continue to follow him. Turning around to face the other man, Luxord crossed his arms and said, "What are you doing?"

Leaning against the wall, Xigbar smirked. "Following you."

"Into my room?"

"Just got your room two days ago and already so possessive." Xigbar shook his head, smirk still on his face. "You're going to change, right?"

He nodded.

"Chill. I'll sit in your room and you'll change in the bathroom."

Luxord sighed. "Xigbar–" he started but was cut off by the sniper.

"Don't worry." He put up both hands in mock surrender and said, smirk ever present, "I won't peak. Promise."

Obviously, nothing Luxord could say would change the other man's mind. That and the fact that he was still cold and itching to get warmer pushed Luxord to opening the door to his room. He walked inside, Xigbar coming in after him and closing the door behind him. He watched silently as the sniper made his way to the bed and promptly sat down on it, ignoring the mental protests of allowing the other man to be in here.

Luxord was about to retreat to the bathroom when he remembered Xigbar's words earlier. A distant suspicion roused, Luxord said, "Xigbar."

The sniper turned to face him. "Yes?"

"What did you mean by 'change'?"

Xigbar tilted his head sideways. "Change as in change into different clothes."

"How do you suggest I do that?"

He seemed surprised. "You don't know?"

Luxord shivered slightly. "Don't know what?"

"You can make new clothes."

There was a pause before Luxord said, "By using a needle and thread?"

Xigbar grinned. "No. You just make it out of the darkness."

Now he was at loss for what to say.

Seemingly having expected his lack of response, Xigbar's grin grew wider. "I could make some for you if you want, but you've got to say please first."

He resisted the urge to sigh. Despite the fact that the very idea of Xigbar making clothes for him to wear made him uncomfortable, Luxord didn't see any other way to get dry clothes. Deciding to ask more questions after he got new clothes–because at that moment, he desperately wanted to get out of his wet clothes–, Luxord looked at Xigbar and grudgingly said, "Please."

The other man got up and walked over to him. Standing next to him, Xigbar put one hand on his shoulder and closed his left eye, his other eye hidden by the eye patch. Luxord tried not to fidget, standing as still as he possibly could. After a few minutes of silence, a whirl of darkness appeared in front of them. Luxord watched silently as the sniper reached out a hand into the swirling darkness. It stayed there for a moment before Xigbar pulled his hand back and the darkness disappeared.

He felt Xigbar let go of his shoulder and Luxord took a step back. The other man grinned at him, lifted his hand and said, "Here you go."

Luxord reached out and carefully took the offered garments. He stared at it for a few moments before saying, "How did you do it?"

Laughing, Xigbar said, "You should go change. You've been wearing those wet clothes for some time already, you know." When Luxord made no move to go to the bathroom, he shrugged and sat back down on the bed. "Go change first. I'll tell you how to do it after you change."

Later was good enough for him; at least he was getting an answer. Luxord walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He held out the clothes Xigbar had given him, studying them. They looked like normal clothes and there didn't seem to be anything visibly wrong with them, so Luxord supposed it was alright to wear them. Still feeling a little suspicious, Luxord took off the wet clothes he was wearing–his boots were left next to the bathtub–and changed into the drier but identical garments.

He left the wet clothes on the sink, unsure of what to do with them and deciding he'll figure it out later. Seeing as how his boots were in no condition to be worn, Luxord walked out of the bathroom barefooted.

As he closed the door, Xigbar looked at him. "Feeling better much?"

Instead of replying, Luxord crossed his arms and repeated his earlier question, "How did you do it?"

"Same way you made your cards. You've got to focus. Only this time you have to use the darkness as well."

He leaned against the wall behind him. "How do I _use_ the darkness?"

Xigbar leaned back, using his arms to support his weight. "That's going to be kind of hard to explain." He paused before continuing. "See, Nobodies are born from the darkness, right? Since we were made from the darkness, the darkness is a small part of us. So, to use the darkness, we just have to look for the darkness inside of us and use it. Get it?"

Luxord frowned. "I'm not sure I follow."

The sniper sighed. "Well, you have to find the darkness inside of you. When you find it, you focus your thoughts on it and do whatever it is you were going to do. That's how we use the portals."

From the way Xigbar said it, he was making it sound like the most natural thing in the world. 'Making clothes out of darkness is a perfectly acceptable everyday occurrence.' He supposed he might as well as give it a try; so far, everything Xigbar had told him had turned out to be true, despite the oddness of some of them. Luxord closed his eyes and tried to do as Xigbar said, completely unsure of what he should be looking for.

After a few moments of prodding and turning up with nothing, Luxord let out a soft sigh of frustration he could no longer hold back. He searched his mind for anything that might give him a clue of what he was looking for. As he was going through past events, he remembered the empty feeling he used to feel so often before–strangely enough, he hadn't felt that feeling for quite some time now–and wondered if that could be it.

Before he could test his suspicions, Xigbar spoke up, "You can sit down, you know. I mean, dude, it's your room."

Luxord opened his eyes and looked at man who was watching him with a look of amusement on his face. Just as he decided to ignore Xigbar's statement and go back to searching, the other man got up and moved to the one chair in the room. Pulling it out from under the table, Xigbar sat down on it and looked at Luxord, seemingly expectant.

He didn't move to sit on the bed immediately, taking his time debating whether he should sit down or not. Finally, Luxord sat down on his bed. After casting one look in Xigbar's direction, he went back to his search.

Still having no idea how exactly he was supposed to find the darkness, Luxord basically went around in circles in his head, mentally prodding his mind. He still ended up with nothing. Luxord bit back a growl of frustration, and searched harder, going through his thoughts and what little memory he had in a hurried search.

Just as he was about to give up and write off his experiment as a completely useless waste of time–for now, at least–Luxord stumbled into the familiar feeling. Somewhere deep inside his mind, Luxord found what he was looking for. The familiar repulsive feeling of hollow nothing he so hated came back in full force. He stopped himself from the reflexively flinching; instead he clutched the bed, his fingers digging into the mattress.

Mind reeling, Luxord struggled to focus his thoughts on the feeling, picturing the black swirl Xigbar had created a few moments ago. When he felt that he had a clear enough picture, he pushed feeling, thoughts and picture together. The familiar tingling spread out throughout his entire body and Luxord opened his eyes.

In front of him stood a black pool of darkness identical to the one Xigbar had created earlier. Feeling a spark of satisfaction at his success, Luxord almost smiled but stopped himself before he could when he remembered the other man. Luxord turned his head slightly to look at the sniper.

Xigbar was considering the darkness Luxord had managed to create in silence. After a few seconds of silence, Xigbar clapped his hands, a small grin on his face. "You did it, dude. Bravo."

Luxord felt his concentration slipping. Deciding not to fight to keep the swirling darkness there, he allowed himself to lose focus, letting the image in his mind disappear. He watched the last of the darkness fade away and let out a breath he had not known he was holding.

There was silence as he breathed, perfectly content to remain silent. Xigbar, however, broke the silence not long after. "So, Mister-I-managed-to-call-out-the-darkness-on-my-second-try, what are you going to do now?"

Feeling completely drained of energy again, Luxord decided he wanted to rest, but he didn't exactly want to tell Xigbar that. The other man was still waiting for his answer, however, so he relented. "Sleep."

To his surprise, Xigbar nodded and got up. "Then I guess I'll be leaving now." He moved towards the door. Luxord unclenched his fingers and got up too, watching the sniper open the door and step outside. Xigbar turned around to look at him and said, "See you tomorrow?"

Luxord nodded. "Shall we meet in the kitchen?"

He grinned. "Sure. See you then. Enjoy your beauty sleep." He waved his hands in farewell and left before Luxord could come up with a response.

Closing the door, Luxord went back to his bed. Discarding his jacket, he left it on the table and lay down on the bed. Feeling exhaustion take over, Luxord fell asleep almost immediately, today's events circling each other in his head.

**End of 9th chapter**

How was it? I'm really worried about this chapter and chapter before, you know, since I didn't really have very much time to read and reread it over and over again before I put this on. My apologies if this sucked. Seriously. Next chapter will be better, I hope, but no promises since I'm not sure if I can keep it or not. Thanks for reading this!


	10. A Day Without

Thank you again for the newly added reviews! Thanks a whole lot! By the way, there's a time lapse in this chapter. I had to put it in there because there is absolutely no way I can write a whole week or two without destroying it. So, the time lapse's there.

I'm not exactly sure what a climax is, so I have no idea how to answer the question. If it makes a difference, I can tell you that I don't think this story will be reaching the end any time soon. I'm sorry this thing is taking so long, but I have no idea how many chapters this fic is going to take before it finishes.

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter Ten : A Day Without**

Luxord walked into his room to find two Gambler Nobodies–as Xigbar had dubbed them after the initial appearance of the new Nobodies in his room–floating around inside it, cards flying out of one of their so-called sleeves and falling into the other. The portal behind him faded away and he walked over to sit on his bed, telling himself that he should be used to it by now; the Nobodies had, after all, been appearing in his room whenever they pleased.

Glancing at them, he politely asked them to leave. They did so immediately, just as they had done the numerous times before for the past three days. After they had left, disappearing into glowing white portals, he was left to wonder what to do for the rest of the day, even when it had only just begun.

Having just eaten his breakfast which had consisted of coffee and biscuits–after Xigbar's relentless nagging about him needing to have something other than coffee for breakfast, Luxord had finally given in, and now it had become more or less a habit–, Luxord felt it rather pathetic of him to be bored already.

It had been slightly over a week since the day he had first come here. Despite him training everyday with Xigbar and sometimes Demyx, Xemnas still claimed he had not been able to find a suitable mission for him yet, so Luxord had been pretty much stuck here in the World That Never Was. He was still curious about the many other worlds he had overhead the other members of the Organization talk about, and had been very tempted to accept Xigbar's offer to go with him on his mission yesterday.

The curiosity and the constant state of ennui were starting to annoy him.

He had tried playing cards with the other members of the Organization, but playing poker with Axel, Xaldin and Demyx wasn't exactly the same as playing with Xigbar, since he couldn't play for questions and answers. In fact, the only good thing that had come out of the games with those three was the amusing reactions they had after the games. Xaldin would usually end up threatening to impale Demyx after the blonde's continuous whining about him losing and the cards hating him. Axel's reactions he didn't appreciate as much; the redhead had attempted again and again to set his cards on fire.

At the first sign of Axel's flames and Xaldin's lances this morning, Luxord had collected his cards, politely thanked the three for their time, and left the kitchen through a portal, appearing in his room.

Now here he was, sitting on his bed in his room without the slightest idea on how to spend the rest of his time today.

Usually, after breakfast, Xigbar would either drag him off to spar with him or he'd go about the castle, making odd comments on whatever it was he felt like. Since the moment the sniper had left for a mission yesterday morning, Luxord had been wondering what he would doing today.

He supposed he could ask Demyx to train with him, but he didn't exactly feel like sparring with the musician; Demyx was a whole lot less challenging compared to Xigbar and it hadn't taken Luxord long to figure out the various ways to beat the blonde. He could, of course, search for other members with free time on their hands and ask them, but it wasn't like he was very comfortable around the others yet.

Vexen rarely left his laboratory, always in the midst of conducting an experiment. Lexaeus was usually either wandering around the Dark City or in deep discussion with one of the first six members of the Organization. Zexion could often be found in the library, searching for things only he knew of as he went through the books in the library at an amazing speed. He had no idea what Saix usually spent his time doing; the blue-haired man could rarely be found, and the only places Luxord had ever seen him were on the roofs of the castle.

The members Luxord saw most often were Xaldin, Demyx or Axel. It could be due to the fact that Demyx was usually getting into trouble–most of the accidents that took place in the castle were caused by him–, Axel was always looking for trouble, purposely messing with others for the fun of it–hence, the rest of the accidents were because of him–and Xaldin often talked to Xigbar, sometimes asking for a moment alone to discuss something. During these times, Luxord would patiently wait for them to finish, having learnt from experience that if he left without Xigbar, the sniper would find him later anyways, so he might as well wait and skip the surprises.

Basically, training was not a very tempting option.

There was always the option of exploring more of the castle, seeing as how he had never gotten very far the first few times he started. Without the sniper here to distract him from his exploration by rambling about a wide range of topics which varied from which worlds would be a complete waste of time to take hearts from and which weren't–a topic Luxord could only listen to, since he knew near nothing of the other worlds–to whether the other members would look nice with pink hair or not, he might get quite a bit further today.

Deciding exploring would be the best way to pass time for now, Luxord got up and left his room. Closing the door behind him, he randomly chose a path and made his way through it. After a while, the places he came across started becoming unfamiliar, and he started paying more attention.

Some rooms had doors; some rooms were connected by doorways. Some of the rooms he passed were filled with the oddest things, multiple piles of random objects covering the floors. Occasionally, he spotted a few lower-ranked Nobodies seemingly going through the piles, probably attempting to clear the room on another member's orders. Some rooms were neater and more in order, so Luxord assumed they were being used.

The walls of the castle were white, detailed with various decorations of white and black. In fact, all the walls were white, be it inside or outside. The walls were decorated with only one other color. All forms of decorations that were not white were black. The whole castle consisted of these two colors and _only_ these two colors.

Luxord didn't know what to think of them.

There were pathways that led to certain parts of the castle that were open; various potential balconies and paths that were connected to each other one way or another. These open places had more air, more sky. Looking up, he could see the constantly black sky and the many tiny shining stars that were many different worlds. The occasional breeze that swept through was cold and refreshing, a nice change from the insides of the castle.

Some distance away from the castle, the tall buildings of the Dark City stood silently, its many lights glowing in the dark sky. He wondered again why there were so many buildings, why they were there if they were all unoccupied.

Heading back inside, he kept on walking, not the slightest bit worried of getting lost. Should he end up lost, all he had to do was summon a portal to wherever he pleased, having almost completely mastered the using of the dark pathways. The darkness responded easily to his calls now, a huge difference compared to the first few times he had tried experimenting with it.

Coming to a stop in front of a large door, he paused only for a moment before reaching out to open it. As he entered the room, his eyes caught sight of a large number of towering bookshelves, all filled with books.

Luxord had been here a few times before, having found his way here by accident the first time. The library, to him, was a comfortable place to be. The people who came here were usually the first six; the later members seemingly held no interest for reading. He himself didn't particularly enjoy reading either, but he did read every now and then.

Walking over to a bookshelf, he scanned the titles of the many books, one hand trailing over them as he moved down the aisle. After one side was done, he moved on to another shelf, temporarily abandoning the exploration; he didn't think there was very much left to explore anyways, so he could finish it up some later, if not, some other time.

He was about to move to another row of books when a figure huddled in one corner caught his eye. At first he assumed it was Zexion, but on closer inspection, the figure turned out to be Xaldin.

Said man was reading a book whose title he couldn't see, sitting crossed-legged on the floor, back leaning against the wall. As Luxord took a few steps closer, the other man didn't look up or give any sign that he had noticed him. Luxord took a moment to ponder whether he should continue waiting or if he should just turn around or go back the way he came.

Just as he turned around to leave, having decided the latter being the better option–for some reason, he had always felt Xaldin held a slight dislike for him–, the Xaldin spoke up. "What are you doing here?"

Luxord turned around to look at the other man–in all honesty, Luxord was surprised the lancer had chosen to speak up at all–who had looked up from his book. "Nothing in particular."

He didn't expect anymore questions on the other man's part, so he wasn't exactly surprised when Xaldin returned to his book without another word. The conversation obviously being over, Luxord made his way back the way he came and resumed scanning the books for something interesting to read. It took a few more rows of books before he gave up and randomly picked the first book that caught his eye.

Removing the book from its place on the shelf, he had a momentary image of someone else holding a book, talking to a person he could not see. The surroundings seemed to be a rather small room, and many objects were scattered around the room. The image disappeared as suddenly as it came, and he was left to wonder what that piece of memory could have meant.

In the end, Luxord made his way to a spot in between the bookshelves, seating himself under a window. The many chairs near the entrance of the library might have been the more practical choice, but he didn't exactly want any of the other members to find him here. Shifting into a more comfortable position, he looked at the book in his hand, remembering the image from his previous memories.

He had experienced a few more 'fits'–for lack of better wording–over the past few days, though he hadn't told anyone about it. Unlike the first 'fit' he supposedly had, Luxord could remember the contents of the ones that came after. In some, he had heard words uttered by faceless voices, having no images to match them to. During others, he had seen only images, things his Other had probably seen before the darkness claimed him.

Whatever it was, Luxord held no hope of piecing them together anytime soon. It didn't bother him, though; granted he was more than slightly curious about his Other's life, but the information seemed like nothing he couldn't live without.

Opening the book in his hands, he attempted to occupy himself with reading, hoping to pass at least a few of the day's remaining hours away. It was with quite a bit of annoyance that he found himself losing interest after only three pages. He read a bit more before giving up, but he didn't get up immediately.

If he stopped reading now, he'd have to find something else to do. That had proven to be quite a difficult thing to do, since he had spent the whole of today and yesterday contemplating his options and coming up with nothing interesting. He could go back to his room and play a few more games of solitaire but after playing that game for six hours straight yesterday, it didn't seem very appealing.

Luxord let out a soft sigh, annoyed that he was as bored as he was now. Surely there must be something he could do. He thought hard, searching for any ideas. If it were any other day, what would he be doing right about now?

…any other day, he would be doing whatever it was Xigbar had decided they do that day. The sniper always decided on an idea and insisted he agree to it, so Luxord would usually just give in and go along with the idea.

Now that he thought about it, he couldn't recall a single day when the sniper hadn't been with him; Xigbar had always made it a point to meet him in the kitchen in the morning, and he'd lead them both through the day from there. Be it training, wandering around the castle, or picking random routes and going for a walk in the Dark City; he had spent the majority of his time here in the castle with the sniper.

And now that the sniper was away on his first mission since Luxord had arrived here, he had been deprived of the things he would usually spend the day doing, leaving him feeling vaguely lost

Somehow, thinking about it made him slightly uncomfortable.

Really, Luxord shouldn't be bored just because the other man wasn't here. When did he come to depend so much on someone else's presence? He did not depend on anyone, because depending would mean trusting them to do right thing when the time comes. Usually, the trust was wrongly placed and the moment would have come and gone, nothing that should have been done would have been done. Luxord wasn't very sure why he thought that way; it just seemed natural to him to not depend, almost like instinct. It was because of that thought that he had made sure the people he came across in Port Royal knew he wanted nothing to do with them, save for a few games of cards.

Yet, he was sitting on the floor in the library, a discarded book on his lap, realizing that since the moment Xigbar had left, all he had done was attempt to distract himself. He had searched for a distraction because he was _waiting_ for the sniper to return.

Did that mean he had started considering Xigbar as something more than just a fellow member of the Organization he was now part of himself? Was he _missing_ the obnoxiously loud sniper?

The very notion of the thoughts he was thinking through was almost enough to make him laugh out loud. Almost, but not quite, so instead Luxord settled for laughing inwardly, automatically keeping his amusement to himself even when there was no one else but him.

The thoughts were, in a way, ridiculous but he wondered for a moment if they could be true, if they _were_ true. If they were, then what would it mean? Would it mean that he was now considering the sniper as a friend? Could Nobodies even have friends, being creatures supposedly lacking hearts and emotions?

He was touching dangerous ground now, he knew it. Some part of him told him to stop thinking about it, to stop mulling over his latest set of thoughts. That, too, felt like the natural thing to do, so he pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind, ignoring them until he could no longer hear the questions they were presenting him with.

Luxord got up, book in hand, and walked back to the place he had taken the book from. When he got there, he carefully pushed the book back into the position he had found it in. Finished, he was about to leave the library by going through the door when he thought better of it. Summoning a portal in front of him, he stepped into the curling darkness and found himself back in his room.

For once there were no Gamblers present, and he was greeted with silence. Luxord walked over to his bed and sat down on it, determined not to ponder his thoughts any further. Calling out a deck of cards, he shuffled them, debating on whether to play yet _another_ game of solitaire–or perhaps FreeCell–or attempt to build a house of cards and see how far he would get.

Deciding on the latter–partly because Luxord didn't think even _he_ could take anymore solitaire–he moved to sit on the floor of his room. Taking the two cards from the deck next to him, he carefully placed them against each other, making it so that they only managed to remain standing by balancing against each other, forming a triangle. He took another two cards from the deck and made another triangle next to the first one. Then he carefully placed one card on top of the two triangles, connecting them and making a platform. Making sure his hands shook as little as possible, Luxord took another two cards and made a third triangle above the first two.

He paused for a moment, surveying the scene in front of him. Once he was satisfied it would stand, Luxord took another two cards and made a fourth triangle next to bottom two, and placed one card to connect it two the rest of the 'house'. Then he proceeded to form a triangle next to the topmost triangle, making it possible to build a third storey.

After a while, it got easier. Luxord didn't have to focus all of his attention on the cards–though it took quite a bit of willpower to prevent the cards from standing still on their own–but he still used up most of his attention. Mentally berating himself for not thinking about this earlier, he was content to spend the rest of the day on his 'house'. Once his first deck of cards finished, he called up another one, pleased at the progress of his house of cards.

Halfway through his sixth deck–the 'house' was a satisfying size by then–a black portal appeared in his room. The pressure the swirling tendrils of darkness gave out disturbed the stillness of the air, causing his cards to lose balance and fall.

Luxord could do no more but stare at what was left of his accomplishment, a small, bitter feeling of rage rising up inside him. He turned to snap at the offender, a hurl of angry words ready, feeling more than livid that his 'house' had been demolished so easily.

The words died on his tongue, however, when he caught sight of the scarred face he had unknowingly longed to see since yesterday, replaced with smallest spark of joy.

**End of 10th chapter**

I'm not sure why this chapter's even here (it sounded kind of pointless when I read it again) but, you know, it is. There's a whole bunch of lame parts all over too, right? I won't blame you if you think this is lame. As always, a word of apology for taking so long to move on with the story (I think I'm at lost on how to get this story from Luxord and Xigbar to Luxord/Xigbar) so it'll probably take some time. Please have patience and give me a little more time before giving up, okay? Thanks very much!


	11. Word of Advice

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter 11 : Word of Advice**

The black portal vanished as the man who had summoned it stared at him and the mess on the floor, his face wearing an amused expression. "Wow, dude," he said, gesturing to the scattered cards, "Did your cards go on a multiplying frenzy of something?"

As he got over his initial surprise at Xigbar's sudden appearance, Luxord fixed the sniper a glare. "For your information, all of my cards were in their given places, balancing perfectly until you arrived."

Xigbar smirked and leaned against an invisible wall, folding his arms. "So I came here and then they went on a multiplying frenzy before creating a huge mess on the floor of your room? Either your cards like me a whole lot and wanted to give me a big welcome, or they're just plain freaky."

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at Xigbar. Instead, he flicked his hand slightly, mentally telling the cards to sort themselves back into the six decks they were before. As the cards sprung to life, noisily moving through the air in their hurry, Luxord leaned back against his bed and looked at Xigbar, taking in the slightly weary way he stood and the tired look in his one visible eye. The sniper was watching the cards in silence, but he had taken a few steps backwards, allowing him to lean against the solid wall of his room rather than the invisible one.

Soon, the cards finished their given task and settled on the floor next to him, neatly dividing themselves into the six stacks. He glanced at them before saying, "Did it not occur to you that perhaps I'd prefer it if you didn't appear in my room uninvited using a portal?"

The other man's smirk returned, wider than the last time. "Okay. One: The '_portal_' is a pathway of darkness. Two: Does it even matter? It's not like I messed up your room or anything. You made the mess yourself."

This time Luxord came very close to rolling his eyes, but he managed to stop himself again and settled for another glare. "You caused the mess."

Xigbar raised an eyebrow. "I did? How could I have possibly done that if I just came back from a mission?"

The initial happiness of seeing the sniper again was carefully tucked away; Luxord had no intention of informing Xigbar of his latest discovery. "Your _spectacular_ entrance caused a wind current which proceeded to demolish my house of cards." He didn't bother to hide his annoyance, though.

He merely laughed at his words–though the laughter sounded slightly weaker than usual–so Luxord didn't push the subject, seeing no benefit in continuing it. He looked at the sniper for a moment, thoughtful. "You're welcome to sit down, if you'd like," he told him.

Xigbar didn't hesitate, immediately making his way to the chair. He promptly sank into it, arms dangling at his side. Luxord thought he heard a sigh from the other man but he didn't mention it. There was silence for a few moments before he said, "How did the mission go?"

The response didn't come immediately; the sniper took his time before answering. "It went as well as any of them could go, I guess. It was better than last time, so I suppose I could say 'The mission went fine!' in a bright, chirpy voice."

Luxord picked up a deck, absently shuffling it. "What happened?"

He shifted, moving to sit a little straighter. Turning his head to look at Luxord, he said, "Nothing worth talking about. Lots of boring walking around with Lexaeus and fighting really weak Heartless' that were no fun at all. But now I've got a question," there was an amused look on his face again, "What were _you_ doing building a house of cards?"

"My doings does not concern you."

At that, he got up from the chair, swiped a stack of cards from the floor and sat on the bed. "Sure it does. If you're going to go crazy on us, I'll have to make sure the others stay out of your way. And I'd like to know really early, so I can conveniently forget to tell some people."

Luxord stopped shuffling, feeling just slightly offended. "Why would building a house of cards label me as insane?"

He shrugged, fingering the few cards left in his hand; he had dropped most of the cards on his bed earlier. "Why else would you do something like that?"

Resisting the urge to glare at the other man, Luxord resumed shuffling the cards in his hand. "Entertainment," he answered shortly.

"How can building a house of cards be fun? You have to concentrate really hard to stop your hands from shaking, just to make sure the house doesn't fall apart and then it falls apart anyways. Then you'd get really frustrated and have to start the whole fucking thing all over again."

Luxord ignored him.

Chuckling at his response–or rather, his lack of one–he collected the cards on the bed. Luxord turned to look at him briefly before setting the cards down on the floor. He picked up another one and started shuffling, hands moving in practiced precision. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Xigbar bend down to pick up another two of his decks. Luxord didn't comment on it, dismissing it as the other man's acting on whim. He ignored the other man again as he bent down from his perch on the bed to take the remaining cards on the floor.

He had only just begun to wonder what the sniper could possibly want with so many cards when he was showered with the very cards he had created.

As he stared at the cards around him, he heard Xigbar laughing behind him, the bed itself shaking slightly. Annoyed–and perhaps a little shocked–, Luxord got up and turned around, glaring at the offender currently clutching his stomach as he laughed. He folded his arms and waited for the other man to finish. Once the laughter subsided, He said, "What could have possibly urged you to do that?"

Xigbar uncurled himself from the ball he had rolled into, one yellow eye looking at him. "I don't know and I don't care. The look on your face was priceless, dude! It was way better than the time Demyx soaked you, and _that_ was an accident!" Then he started laughing again.

Instead of responding, Luxord released the cards, allowing them to disappear. Soon the room held no trace of the mess it had before, and he turned looked at Xigbar once more, remaining silent.

The sniper sat up, his amusement still apparent. He got up from the bed and said, "By the way, we should probably get going." He grinned. "Wouldn't want to miss the introductions, now, would we?"

Luxord raised any eyebrow at the other man's words. "What do you mean?"

He waved a hand dismissively. "The sooner we get going, the sooner you'll find out. Or maybe I'll just tell you on the way. Either way, we should head to the kitchen now. I'm sure Xemnas is probably finished with his questioning."

He would have asked more but the sniper had already summoned a portal and vanished into it. Luxord stepped into the portal too, and found Xigbar already walking ahead. He quickened his pace, only slowing down when he was walking next to the sniper. "What did you mean earlier? Who was Xemnas questioning?"

Xigbar's only response was to smirk at him. Then he quickened his pace, walking even faster towards the portal further in front of them, seemingly enjoying not answering the question.

Cursing silently, Luxord hurried after the sniper in front of him. He stepped into the portal after Xigbar and found himself in just outside the castle's kitchen. The portal disappeared behind him, and he followed Xigbar as the other man made his way into the kitchen, well aware of the voices coming from their destination. When he got there he realized all the other Organization members were also present.

Locating Xigbar on the other side of the kitchen, Luxord quickly made his way over to him, determined to get some answers. By the time he reached the sniper, Xigbar was already leaning against the wall, not at all surprised when he asked, "What did you mean?"

"We're going to meet someone."

"Who?"

"The person with Xemnas right now. He'll probably be down soon, so just chill, will you?"

Luxord was tempted to question it further, but he decided against it in the end. Instead, he leaned against the wall next to Xigbar, prepared to wait in silence for his answer. In front of him, he could hear Demyx's voice, talking excitedly to anyone who would listen–though his main target was Xaldin, who did not look too happy at being picked–and Vexen's telling him to shut up. Zexion and Lexaeus were talking quietly in one corner of the kitchen, and Axel was playing with what seemed to be a box of matches. Saix was by himself, standing as far as possible from the others.

The answer came not long after, as a portal opened in the middle of the kitchen. Everyone fell silent as two figures stepped out of the portal. The portal vanished as one of the figures removed his hood, revealing himself as Xemnas. He motioned for the person standing next to him to do the same.

As the second figure removed his hood to reveal a man with brown–with small traces of pink–hair, Xemnas said, "This man will be Number XI of our Organization." He looked at the man beside him. "Introduce yourself."

The minute the newcomer smiled and said, "I'm Marluxia," Luxord decided he didn't like him. There was something wrong with his facial expression making it seem false, but the falsity was practiced, almost as natural as it was not. His eyes glowed with something Luxord couldn't name, making the smile seemed friendly and yet hostile at the same time.

"I'll leave you here with the others to get acquainted with each other. Later, Saix will show take to your room." With that, Xemnas opened another portal and left, leaving the people in the kitchen in the uneasy silence.

Xaldin was the first to speak. "Do you remember where you're from?" he asked, hesitatingly slightly.

The man called Marluxia smiled as he replied but Luxord wasn't listening. The second smile had also been devoid of the authenticity–or as close as a smile a Nobody produced could come to being authentic–yet it was covered by a carefully made mask that showed so little of its falsity that Luxord almost thought he imagined it. But he knew it wasn't genuine; it didn't look anywhere as real as Demyx's expressions, and the blonde was the only one in the whole castle who still insists that he has a heart.

"You can stay if you want but I'm leaving."

Xigbar's words snapped him out of his thoughts and he was surprised to see the sniper making his way out of the kitchen. Luxord didn't follow him immediately, noticing that Saix, Demyx and Axel–the latter two talking to Marluxia–were the only ones left in the kitchen. He didn't bother introducing himself to the most recent recruit, choosing instead to go after Xigbar.

He left the kitchen, walking at a slightly hurried pace as he looked for the sniper. He had to wonder aimlessly around for a while before he finally found Xigbar in one of the common rooms–common being the term used due to the room being one of many most frequently used–sitting on a windowsill with one leg dangling down on the inner part of the room and the other resting on the side of the window, most probably for balance. Luxord slowed his pace and walked over to the other man.

As he got closer, Xigbar turned to look at him–probably hearing his footsteps–and Luxord noticed the serious expression on his face. The seriousness melted away into a grin as he got closer, and Xigbar said, "Finished making friends already?"

Luxord sat down on a nearby chair. "Indeed. The man is truly an interesting person. Had Saix not intervened and dragged him away, I would have probably chosen to stay there longer."

Xigbar tilted his head, his grin widening slightly. "Was that sarcastic or what?"

"Did it sound sarcastic?"

There was silence for a moment as he pretended to consider it. Finally, he nodded. "Yup."

"Then yes, it was." Luxord looked past the sniper and out the window, seeing the dark sky. Absently he wondered what time it was.

"If I had said no, what would you have said?"

"Exactly what I said a moment ago."

He changed his sitting position, making it so that his back faced the sky outside. Luxord found it a rather dangerous position, balancing precariously on the windowsill like that, but he didn't say anything. "If it wasn't going to make a difference, why'd you even ask the question?"

Instead of answering the other man, Luxord asked, "Did you know about him?"

The sniper's grin turned into a smirk. "Well, seeing as how Lexaeus and I brought him back, I don't see how I could not know about him."

"When were you planning on informing me about him?"

Xigbar raised both his hands in defense at Luxord's accusing tone–which was more of an accident than anything; he hadn't meant to give it away–and said, "Hey, I told you we had to get to the kitchen, right?"

He shifted into a more comfortable position, gaze still fixed on the man in front of him. "After you comment on my sanity and dropped my cards all over me."

Leaning back, Xigbar rested his back on thin air–one day, Luxord was going to ask him how he did that–, his face taking on an expression of mocked hurt. "At least I told you. You could be a little bit grateful for that."

Luxord moved on to the next question. "Why were you in such a hurry to leave?"

Xigbar grinned again, saying, "Because I'm not exactly big on pinked-haired people."

He wasn't surprised at Xigbar's response, already expecting the sniper to say something like that. He didn't push for a better answer but he didn't start another conversation either. He sat in silence, looking anywhere but the sniper as he waited.

Xigbar sighed. The other man didn't answer immediately, but Luxord didn't make any move to go anywhere else; he did, after all, want his answer. In the end, the other man said, "I don't like him."

This answer surprised him. Luxord looked at Xigbar, who had resumed his earlier position, staring out the window once more. "Any particular reason?"

"Yes."

"Ah." He paused for a moment. "Care to share it?"

"Nope," he said, but he stopped gazing at the sky, turning to look at Luxord.

Luxord decided that that was far enough, so he didn't prod any further. "Do you know what time it is?"

The sniper blinked once, as if surprised at the sudden change of topics. Then he said, "Well, whatever time it is, I'm in serious need of some fresh air after _that_ mission. Really, I'm almost glad the Heartless swallowed that world; it means we'll never have to go back there again." He got down from his perch and stretched. "I'm going for a walk. You coming?"

A walk wasn't exactly something he felt like doing at that exact moment, but he went along anyways. He followed the sniper out of the room and outside the castle. "What was that world like?"

Xigbar chuckled. "Let's just say gigantic man-eating plants and flowers that try to bite of your arm don't exactly make a very fun world to visit."

He accepted that in silence, looking around him as they walked. He didn't say anything else, and for once, neither did Xigbar. They both walked in silence–though he wasn't sure if the sniper's silence was something he shouldn't be concerned about–and it wasn't long before they reached the Dark City. As they walked down one of the roads of the city, Luxord sensed Heartless nearby. He prepared himself, ready for an attack if it came.

After a few more turns, the first attack came. Heartless appeared from the ground, surrounding them. Luxord focused his energy, ready to fight them but Xigbar said, "Let me do it." He was surprised at Xigbar's tone but he didn't object, instead standing silently as the sniper went around shooting the Heartless.

When the remaining Heartless retreated into the ground once more, the other man walked over to him, slightly out of breath. Luxord was about to suggest resting to Xigbar, concerned at seeing the sniper so restless, when Xigbar said, "Be careful."

He looked at Xigbar, barely seeing the guns disappear from the sniper's hands. "What?"

"Marluxia." Xigbar's gaze was unreadable but the tone of his voice said it all "Stay away from him."

**End of 11th chapter**

Another chapter done! Mind you, I have no idea what Marluxia's hair color is, so I just added both. Thanks for reading! Hopefully, the next chapter will be better, even if next week is the last week holidays. Once school starts again, this story will definitely slow down, so I'll try to write as much as possible, okay?


	12. Knock, Knock

I'm just wondering: am I jumping around too much? Skipping so much it's becoming annoying? If it is, then I'm very sorry but I can't think of any other way. Twelfth chapter here now. I'm so glad I did this in the car because there was hardly enough time for me to finish writing this in the computer. Next week school starts, so updates will probably come out a whole lot slower, okay?

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter 12 : Knock, Knock**

Marluxia was a dangerous man, one best kept under careful supervision. One look at him Luxord could see something very, very wrong. All of his expressions seemed artificial, like it was hiding something far, far worse underneath his friendly smiles and guilelessly eager-for-more expressions.

After four days worth of observations, he had come to the conclusion that Marluxia was indeed a power hungry man. Luxord wasn't sure if the others had noticed, but he had looked more than once into Number XI's eyes and each time he looked he found carefully concealed greed; he saw a deep whirlpool of avarice, merging with the other man's irises.

For the past four days, he had watched the newcomer whenever they happened to be in the same room. Marluxia interacted quite often with the other members; he would start conversations by asking innocently-poised questions which varied depending on the member currently being targeted. With the first six members, there were many questions about the origins of the Nobodies and the Heartless. Sometimes he got answers, sometimes he didn't. With Saix, conversations tended to be difficult, seeing as how the potential topics of conversations died in front of the blue-haired man's preferred silence. Conversations with Number VIII and Number XI were much easier, the many topics that could be discussed being a great advantage.

Luxord didn't like Marluxia, not since the first time he had met him. And neither did Xigbar, for that matter. He had suspected the sniper's dislike from the abrupt way he had left the kitchen that day and his suspicions had been confirmed later on, during the walk through the Dark City, after the last of the Heartless disappeared.

"_What?" he managed to say after catching up with Xigbar's retreating form._

_The sniper remained silent, refusing to look at him. After some time passed by in silence, Luxord repeated his question. Rather reluctantly, Xigbar answered, "Keep away from him."_

_He frowned. "What do you mean?"_

"_Exactly what I said." He quickened his pace, forcing Luxord to walk faster in order to keep up with him. "Stay away from that guy."_

"_What made you say that?"_

_Still refusing to look at Luxord he said, "Instinct."_

_It wasn't enough of answer; his curiosity was becoming unbearable and he was determined to satisfy at least one part of it. "Why?"_

"_Nothing you need to know." Xigbar's words brought him no closer to the satisfaction he wanted._

"_You never required me to need to know before you informed me of things before. I see no reason as to why that should change now."_

"_Dude, doesn't that mean you should be happy that I'm not telling you something?"_

"_Not if the information you're withholding is of some interest to me."_

_Xigbar didn't answer, keeping his gaze fixed on the path in front of them and moving at an even faster speed._

_Seeing that the other man was making no move to respond, Luxord decided that desperate situations called for desperate measures, and this being one such moment. He grabbed Xigbar's arm and gripped it tightly, forcing the sniper to stop walking. "Give me a reason," he demanded. When Xigbar didn't turn to look at him he moved in front of the other man and said, "Tell me."_

_Even then, he refused to meet Luxord's gaze, but he answered. "It's just a feeling, okay? Nothing to get excited about."_

_It was at that moment that he noticed Xigbar's troubled expression. He noticed the nervous way he stood, noticed the way his arm shook slightly in Luxord's grasp, twitching like he was barely stopping himself from pulling it back. Nevertheless, Luxord tightened his fingers over Xigbar's arm, refusing to back down despite the sniper's subtle signs of discomfort. "Is it so difficult for you to just tell me?"_

_Finally, Xigbar looked at him, glancing at him for the briefest of moments before looking away again. "Yes, it is!" he said, his tone nearing a yell, frustration coloring his voice._

_Slightly taken aback, it took Luxord a moment to recover from the surprise at hearing the sniper's tone. It wasn't like Xigbar to shout angrily; yelling insulting comments at others was normal, but he had never heard the other man so aggravated before. He scrutinized Xigbar's troubled expression, searching for clues he might have missed. "What wrong?" he said, concern rising within him._

"_It's nothing," was the mumbled response._

_Luxord took one step closer, lessening the distance between them. "Xigbar," he said. When the man in front of him continued to remain silent, he said in a firmer voice, "Xigbar. What's bothering you?"_

_The sniper sighed before responding. "It's just a word of advice, okay? Don't get too close to Marluxia."_

_Slightly relieved that he had finally gotten an answer, he said, "A word of advice? Why would you advise me against something like that?"_

_This time, when gaze met gaze, Xigbar didn't turn away. "I told you already: instinct. Or a feeling I have. Take your pick. It's just, it feels like something's off about that guy. There's something wrong."_

_He considered this, not mentioning his similar thought, though he was a bit surprised that Xigbar had felt it too. "So, are you suggesting that our latest…comrade is dangerous?"_

"_Yes. No, wait, no! I didn't say anything like that!"_

_In a way, it was a little amusing to see the sniper so flustered, and Luxord had to resist the urge to smile. "Why else would you tell me to avoid him? Is it not because there's something peculiar about him?"_

"_Yes, that's why I said that, but I didn't say he was dangerous!" he insisted._

"_Not literally, no, but that's what you meant."_

"_No it wasn't–god damn it, stop twisting my words around!"_

"_I am not twisting your words around. All I'm trying to say is that you suggested that Marluxia is a dangerous man." He was having fun; it wasn't everyday that word games with Xigbar took place._

"_And all **I'm** trying to say is that that's not what I'm suggesting!"_

"_Then what are you suggesting?"_

"_I'm suggest–argh! Dude, I'm not suggesting anything! It's a word of advice, you asshole! Stay the fuck away from that guy!"_

_Luxord supposed that was as far as he should push; any further and he might risk bringing on more than just biting retorts. "Fine," he said, admitting defeat for now, "I'll be sure to remember your **advice**." He turned around, resuming their unfinished journey back to the castle. Luxord didn't look back, but moments later he heard Xigbar's footsteps as he caught up with him. The other man matched his pace silently, and neither of them said another word until they reached the castle._

And to make matters worse, three days after Marluxia was first brought here, Xemnas announced the discovery of the 12th member of the Organization, Larxene. Number XII had only been here for one day and already she had the whole Organization on the edge with her bitchy comments and constant complaints about nearly everything. In his opinion, Larxene complained far more than Demyx did and frankly, Luxord had considered that an impossibility until yesterday.

Xigbar hadn't mentioned anything about Larxene–other than how the Organization seemed to get noisier day after day–, so Luxord didn't have the slightest idea what the other man's opinion on the newest addition to their group were.

Pulling himself away from his thoughts, he looked down at the cards spread out on his bed. This was his, what, 20th game of FreeCell tonight and he still didn't feel sleepy. Luxord had tried to get some sleep earlier, but his efforts proved to be futile; no matter how hard he tried he just couldn't go to sleep. He had thought that playing a few games of cards would help, but so far it hadn't made much of a difference.

Luxord had left the window in his room open, allowing the breezes from the cold night air outside into his room. The crescent moon reflecting light–which was an interesting concept; did all worlds share one sun?–was currently hidden by the clouds in the dark sky. The rest of the castle had been quiet for quite some time now; he had heard the other members retire to their rooms earlier and now all was as silent as death. In fact, the light shining in his room was probably the only light still on in the entire castle.

Heaving a sigh as he won yet another game of FreeCell easily–winning one-player games wasn't exactly all that thrilling when you never lose–, he collected the cards on his bed, shuffled them and laid them out once more. As he played, he let his mind wander freely, not bothering to pay all that much attention to the current game.

Tomorrow would be the day he went on his first mission. Luxord supposed he should be more enthusiastic at the thought of it, considering how much he had wanted one, but he just couldn't bring himself to be eager about it. He had accepted the mission Xemnas gave him but it wasn't like he was overly excited about it. The mission was just…there. Probably because the mission itself didn't sound very interesting.

"I would like you to go to Port Royal and survey the situation there. There, you will look for any signs of Heartless activities, no matter how slight, and investigate it. However, ensure that you are not recognized by anyone there; it will be troublesome to clean a mess such as that up. Spend one day there searching before you leave. Upon you return, I would like a full report on your findings. Remember, conduct a throughout search but always remain vigilant."

Well, to sum it all up, those were roughly his orders.

Xemnas had told him to search for Heartless activities, which most probably meant there were hardly _any_ active Heartless whatsoever. That left him with going about looking for signs of trouble while keeping himself from being identified. The latter was simple enough; with his jacket hood up, all he had to do was stay away from places associated with him. If Xemnas had been perfectly fine with wearing the jacket around Port Royal, he had nothing to worry about.

However, since he wasn't supposed to go near taverns, he had basically nothing to entertain himself with. The prospect of spending the entire day doing absolutely nothing but walk around a town while avoiding unnecessary confrontations didn't sound very appealing.

Winning his 21st game of FreeCell, Luxord called the cards to his hand, watching as they instantly responded by making their way towards his open palm. After a moment of consideration, he told the cards to shuffle themselves. He leaned back against the wall behind him, eyes focused on the cards' fluent movements as they floated in mid-air. Once he deemed the amount of shuffling done sufficient, he reached out for the cards once more.

Moving into a more comfortable sitting position, he laid out the cards for his 22nd game, just about resigned to spending the rest of the night playing FreeCell, though how he was going to stay awake tomorrow, he wasn't sure. Putting the 10th of spades up in one of the four empty spaces, he picked up the 5th of hearts and placed it on the 6th of clubs, it being his starting move.

Halfway through the game, Luxord heard a light tapping on his door. Pausing in his movements, he looked up, allowing himself one short moment to wonder who it could be–but then again, who else could possibly be knocking on his door in the middle of the night?–before getting up to open the door.

Just as he had expected, Xigbar was standing in front of him. Luxord looked at him, not saying anything. He tilted his head slightly, not bothering to voice his question.

Xigbar grinned at him, leaning against the doorframe. "'sup, Luxord? What are you doing?"

He stared at him, finding the question rather redundant. "It's currently in the middle of the night, Xigbar. What do you think I was doing?"

The other man laughed. "Stupid question, huh?"

"Indeed," he answered, folding his arms. The sniper didn't say anything else after that, instead letting his gaze wander elsewhere. Luxord could feel his face twitching to frown, feeling slightly worried. He didn't ask what the other man was doing in front of his room at such a late hour–it had been quite late the last time he had checked–though, choosing instead to wait for Xigbar to bring it up.

Not long after, Xigbar looked at him, still grinning but the casualness usually portrayed in his features had disappeared. "Can I ask you something?"

The slightly nervous expression bothered him, reminding him of the way Xigbar had acted the day Marluxia had been introduced. Luxord didn't mention the idiocy of his second question in favor of finding out what it was exactly that the other man wanted. "What is it?" he said, still forcing himself to not keep a smooth expression, not wanting his unreasonable concern to show.

He rubbed the back of his head in an anxious way. "Um…do you think I could, you know," he hesitated, as if unsure whether to go on or not, "sleep in your room?"

Xigbar's request rendered him speechless, literally; all he could do was stare blankly at the man standing in front of him. Whatever response he might have had died on his tongue as his brain tried to process the sniper's words.

Under the gaze Luxord was giving him, Xigbar had started to fidget, shifting the weight of his body from one foot to the other every now and then as he waited for an answer. After a while–and Luxord still hadn't succeeded to come up with an acceptable response–Xigbar said, "If your answer's no, you'll have to tell me, you know. I'm no telepath."

To which Luxord responded with yet another blank stare, his thoughts still moving at a very slow pace. In fact, he was still debating whether this was Xigbar's idea of a joke or if he was actually, honestly being serious about it. Also, he was fairly sure his incredulity was apparent; it wasn't like he was doing very much to cover it.

Probably seeing the disbelief on his face, Xigbar straightened up–he used the doorframe for support as he pushed himself up–, his face wearing an expression Luxord couldn't read. "Okay, okay. I get it. I'll leave now." He turned around, moving in the direction of his room.

His words jolted his thoughts back to its normal pace. Snapping out of his dazed state, Luxord reached out towards him and caught the sniper's arm, grasping it tightly. "Xigbar, wait," he said, tugging slightly on the other man's arm and pulling him back. "I'm sorry. It's just…you're request is rather unusual."

Xigbar didn't resist his tugging, letting Luxord pull him. Once he was standing in roughly the same spot as he was just now, he looked at Luxord and said, "So…is that an okay?"

He didn't let go of Xigbar's arm, fingers still curled tightly around it. Nor did he provide the sniper with an answer. After a moment, he moved to one side of the doorframe, giving the other man space to come inside. Only then did he release Xigbar's arm, letting it drop to the other man's side. Xigbar looked at him, gaze lingering for a while longer before walking past him and into his room.

Closing the door, Luxord paused before turning around. As he did so, he saw Xigbar standing to next to his bed, the light from the moon outside casting shadows in front of him and hiding his face. There was an unfamiliar prickling in his chest, around the place where his heart should have been, that he couldn't name. He was about to reach up to touch the tingling spot when Xigbar spoke. "You know, when you asked me what I thought you'd be doing in the middle of the night, my answer was sleeping, not playing cards." The amusement in his voice was clearly evident but there were still very subtle traces of anxiety in it.

Luxord held out a hand and the cards on the bed flew towards him, landing neatly on his outstretched palm. "Do you have a problem with me playing cards?"

"Dude, if I had a problem with you and your freaky obsession with cards, I would have said so a long, long time ago. So, obviously, no, I don't have a problem with you playing cards."

Once all the cards were that were formerly on his bed were in his hand, he allowed his concentration to waver, letting the cards disappear. "Then why the question?"

"Because, dude, what the heck are you doing playing cards in the middle of the night when you should be sleeping? Don't you have a mission to do tomorrow?"

He shot Xigbar a glare, not exactly feeling any hostility towards the sniper but doing it anyways. "I could ask the same of you. Why are you not asleep yet?"

There was a brief moment of silence as the other man paused before answering. "Couldn't sleep."

Luxord accepted the barely audible response, moving to sit down on one side of the bed. He gestured towards the other side saying, "If that is so, you should try getting some sleep here." With that, he turned away from Xigbar and lay on his side, letting his eyes drift shut. He didn't hear any movements immediately, but soon after he turned around, he felt the bed shift, moving slightly as the other man got on it. There was soft rustling as he heard the sniper move around for a while before finally stopping.

He was feeling uncertain about his decision to allow Xigbar to sleep in his room; there was a small amount of discomfort at the notion of sharing a bed with another person. Doing his best to ignore the unsettling feelings, Luxord forced himself to relax, loosening the strained muscles in his body. As he tried to sleep, he could hear the faint sounds of the other man's breathing, finding the presence of the extra warmth strange and yet, oddly familiar at the same time.

**End of 12th chapter**

Happy New Year everyone! May this fic finish soon, so we may start on the next one. Now that there's more LuxrodXigbar stuff, things should probably move on a little faster, so let's hope for the best! Many thanks for you time!

This chapter was probably kind of strange, huh? However, I assure you it was a necessity, because there's this part I've got in my head that I really want to put in later on, so this way I can sort if make it connect. I think. By the way, I'm not sure if 'as silent as death' is right or not, but I went ahead and used it anyways. If it is wrong, let me know and I'll fix it.


	13. People Say

Hey, people. Sorry about this being a whole week late. I think the rest of the chapters will probably be like that. 'nyways, I know I've said this before but I'll just say it again: Happy New Year, dudes! Yeah, hopefully, it'll be happy.

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter 13 : People Say**

The next day, Luxord woke up to find Xigbar gone and the space next to him cold, probably form being unoccupied for some time. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, feeling slightly dizzy form the movement.

Remembering the mission, he got off the bed, grabbed his jacket and slipped into it. He started in the direction of the door before thinking better of it. Halting in his steps, Luxord opened a portal to the kitchen and stepped into it, deciding against walking all the way to the kitchen. As he entered the kitchen, he had to blink a few times, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the sudden light.

When he could see properly again, he looked around the kitchen, taking in its silent and unoccupied condition. Spotting the coffee maker, he moved towards it, stopping by a cupboard to get himself a mug first before reaching out for the coffee pot. Judging from the amount of coffee still present, he decided it was safe to assume most of the Organization was still asleep–else the coffee would be half gone–and that meant he could–hopefully–take his time before leaving for the mission.

Pulling out a chair and sitting on it, he took a small sip form the mug in his hands, feeling refreshed as warmth made its way through his body. He had just settled down to slowly drinking the coffee when the sounds of footsteps reached his ears, each footstep becoming louder as the seconds ticked by. Abandoning the initial plan of savoring the still hot liquid, Luxord drank it as fast as he could, ignoring the way his throat protested, quickly emptying the mug.

Having no desire to see any of the Organization's early risers–in fact, the only he didn't mind was probably Xigbar–, he got up and hurriedly deposited the empty mug into the sink. Just as he was about to teleport to a different part of the castle–he'd leave for Port Royal later–, the owner of the footsteps spoke up. "Good morning, Number X."

Recognizing the voice, Luxord closed his eyes briefly, not at all pleased to have his suspicions confirmed, before opening them and turning around to face the last man he wanted to see that morning. "Good morning, Number XI."

Marluxia stood in the doorway of the kitchen, the ever present fake smile on his face. "You're certainly up early. Any reason in particular?" he asked as he sat down at the table.

He regretted his earlier decision; the better choice would have been to warp back to his room, taking the coffee with him. "Xemnas assigned a mission to me."

"Did he?" The other man's eyes seemed to light up slightly, the expression on his face changing slightly to something that faintly resembled unfriendly eagerness. "What does the Superior want you to do?"

Feeling oddly repulsed by the other man's expression, Luxord turned away, moving towards the snack cupboard. He opened it and randomly picked a jar of biscuits, taking two out for himself before replacing the lid on the jar. "That," he said as he returned to the container to its place, "does not concern you."

"Ah, of course. My apologies. Please, ignore that question," was Marluxia's response.

Luxord didn't turn back to look at the other man, nor did he say anything else. Instead he opened a portal back to his room, desiring no further conversation with he other man and wanting to leave as soon as possible.

He had just taken a step towards the portal when Marluxia said, "However, I do have another question."

Pausing in his movements, Luxord looked back at the man sitting at the table, forcing himself to maintain a blank expression. "What is it?" he asked, fighting to keep the reluctance from becoming apparent.

Marluxia's face remained pleasant but Luxord didn't think he appreciated the somewhat smug smile the other man wore. "Is there, by any chance, anyone accompanying you on the mission?"

He felt surprised by the question, curious as to what brought it up. "No," he answered shortly. After a moment's consideration, he added, "Why do you ask?"

The smile grew, cutting through the innocent expression Luxord had never believed. "Oh, no reason. I was just wondering."

Luxord didn't bother prodding for a more specific answer; he stepped into the portal in front of him, leaving the kitchen and its sole occupant behind. Soon after, he found himself in his room again, standing next to the bed. Remembering the biscuits in his hand, he sat down on his bed and took a bite out of one of them, absently chewing as he pondered the question earlier. He had no idea as to why the man had asked the question; did Marluxia think he'd be taking someone along with him? And even if that was what the other man was thinking, who could he have in mind?

The only person he could think of was Xigbar, since he preferred no company at all to everyone else's; in fact, the only reason he put up with the sniper was because Xigbar had persisted in irritating him with his presence and the only choices he had were either to continue resenting the other man's company or learn to tolerate it. Should that be the answer, why would Marluxia even be interested to begin with?

He bit back a sigh and finished the last of his morning meal, feeling less and less eager about going to Port Royal. Seeing no way to get out of it–not that he would have, even if there was a way–, he got up and covered his head with his jacket's hood. Calling once more to the darkness, he pictured his destination in his mind, concentrating as hard as he could. When he felt like he had a reasonably good image of it, Luxord summoned a portal connected to the place he had thought of and stepped into it.

A blue-filled sight greeted him, decorated with shades of red–in certain parts–and white markings. Xigbar had told him about this place. The pathway was apparently connected to the pathways of darkness they used, accessible only when they were trying to access a place in a different world. He walked on, closing in on the other portal some distance away and stepping into that one.

The first thing he noticed was the brightness and warmth of the sunlight. The next thing he noticed–and this he noticed with a small amount of satisfaction and quite a bit of relief–was that he had teleported himself to a spot different from the one he had come to the first time he found himself here.

Luxord took a moment to familiarize himself with the almost-forgotten heat and bright light of the sun, enjoying the feel of authentic warmth that far surpassed the heat of the artificial lights back in the other world. Then he started walking, moving in the direction of the loud voices and various other sounds.

Soon a town came into view, alive with activity as large, bustling crowds occupied the streets. The almost deafening noise unbalanced him; he had gotten so used to the quite castle–meaning the times without Axel's childish pranks–and its dark and even quieter city. It seemed like he'd have to learn to get used to the clamor all over again.

He stepped into the crowd, trying to avoid contact as much as possible and ignoring the few heads turned his way, silently repeating to himself that they were just curious at the sight of his odd–to them–clothing as he attempted to convince himself to not worry unnecessarily. If Xemnas had been here before and the man had sent him back here with such ease, it meant curiosity was of no problem; so long as he didn't accidentally reveal himself, all would go well.

Turning around a corner, Luxord searched for someplace with a lower noise level. The Heartless–if there were any–were probably avoiding making their presence known; else the whole town would be enveloped in chaotic fear and so far, he hadn't seen anything that even mildly fit that description. At one point, he came to a place that seemed slightly quieter than the earlier streets, though not by much. The crowd, although thinner, was in no other way different from the crowds before, so chances of Heartless being present were probably also minimal.

Only when he came to an isolated place, a distance away from the busy crowds and completely devoid of people, did he stop. Bricks had been stationed in certain places, traces of the beginnings of walls that had probably been abandoned. The place didn't look anymore suspicious than the streets he had just walked before, the only difference being the more silent surroundings. Still, he needed a starting point somewhere and this might as well be it.

Luxord started walking again, his steps cautious and his guard up, ready for any form of surprises. Over the past few days, he had learned to recognize the vague difference between the two types of darkness; the one that lashed out, bit and clawed at any being within their reach was filled with a certain sort of malice, buzzing slightly with energy, whereas the darkness that readily obeyed his commands hummed silently in the air, remaining still unless prodded. It was something Xigbar had taught him, the sniper saying that having one of the Organization being torn apart by a couple of Shadows was hardly going to be of any benefit.

He supposed the ocean was quite close; he could hear the sounds of waves crashing against the rocks and the beaches but he couldn't see it. The air was accompanied occasionally by breezes, causing the branches to sway and the leaves to rustle. The loud voices had been reduced to a low buzz, barely audible from the place he was. So far, there hadn't been a single living creature in sight–save for the trees–, the only way he knew of them were the cawing sounds they made and the seldom flapping of their wings.

Crows were pitiable creatures and in an odd, unexplainable way, they reminded him of the Organization; both fully clad in black and both giving off the aura of a mystery. What exactly was the purpose of their existence, the feathery birds painted as black as night with a voice so unpleasant that one 'caw' would ring in a person's ears a good time after it was first heard?

They were often associated with bad luck, he had heard, a warning of the coming of unhappy times. The presence of a crow–to certain superstitious people–could mean a various number of things and avoiding them were usually in people's best interests. Most of the times, crows were considered an omen, bringing misfortune to any who see the ebony creatures. In extreme cases of the ridiculous belief, to have a crow landing on the roof of a person's home meant death was lingering close by.

It was preposterous, having so much faith in such an incredulous belief. How could crows possibly bring signs of future events with them? The future was an uncertain thing, a time meant to be known only when it became the present, not a moment before.

The future depended on fate. Luck may have something to do with things but the future was mostly in destiny's hands. People were not meant to tamper with events to come, not meant to play with the future and changing it to fit their liking. A person could do everything imaginable to predict the many possible futures but no once could actually envisage it completely. Alterations should be left to fate and fate alone.

The future was unpredictable; no matter how people might say otherwise, the future has always been and always will be a time out of reach.

His thoughts were brought to an abrupt stop when a low rumble interrupted the silence. His head snapped up, instantly noticing what he had missed earlier as he took in the threateningly dark clouds that had already covered a large portion of the sky. He paused, absently wondering why he hadn't noticed the change before as he debated his next step. If he went back to the castle now, he would be returning empty–handed and his mission would be labeled a failure, being put into the same category as Number IX–who had made a miserable mess of his simple task, something Xigbar had enjoyed telling him about very much–and that wasn't a very appealing thought.

However, if he did decide to stay here and attempt to complete the mission later on, after the rain stops, he'd have to look for shelter first. That was simple enough–all he had to do was find a tavern nearby and he'd have a good enough shelter–but Xemnas had specifically said to stay away from such places. Going into a tavern increased the chances of bumping into someone that might recognize him, though he wouldn't mind taking his chances and playing the game.

A brief flash of light pierced through the sky, followed by another growl of thunder, almost like a warning to him; if he wanted to stay dry, he would have to make up his mind soon. The clouds seemed to signify a long, heavy shower, judging from the dark color it was, so he wasn't sure if he'd be able to continue his search afterwards.

He reached a decision as the third lightning streaked the sky, a flash of white contrasting against the dark shades of the rain clouds. Luxord quickly walked back towards the crowded streets, now having become more chaotic as people moved in a hurry, saving themselves and their belongings. Looking around, he spotted a tavern nearby. He hesitated only for a short moment before briskly cutting through the crowd, deciding he'd worry about the consequences later; technically, as long as he kept his hood up and stayed away from gambling tables, he should be fine.

Pushing the entrance door open, Luxord was instantly greeted with more loud voices and drunken laugher. He closed the door behind him, searching for a safe place to sit; a corner would be the best, of course, but a place a good distance away from the erratic group of stumbling drunk customers would serve its purpose well enough. Finding a place that would have to do, he moved over to it and sat down, deciding not to stop for a drink first.

A group of men were playing a game of cards a few tables in away, their voices barely perceptible amongst the noise. It was all he could do to resist the temptation to walk over there and join them; it had been so long since he'd played a good game of poker with money as the risks. He looked away, trying to ignore their presence and stifling the slowly-building urge.

It was at that moment when a drunkard stumbled Luxord's way, banging his knee against the table and causing it to shake slightly as he lost his balance. The man clutched the table for support, using one hand to steady himself as the other held his drink uncertainly in the air, before giving Luxord a toothy grin. "Sorry 'bout that. The walls have taken to dancing lately and the floor's decided to join 'em."

Luxord didn't say anything, watching as the intruder sat uninvited in the vacant seat in front of him as he debated whether or not it was safe to speak. He couldn't remember ever seeing this particular man before but he couldn't say he was sure; he had seen far too many unimportant faces to be able to recall each and every one perfectly.

The man in front of him slammed the mug in his hand onto the table, spilling some of its contents. He mumbled something under his breath but the words were far too slurred and voice too low for it to be audible. Then he leaned back, looking at Luxord. "Not having anything to drink?"

Then again, taking into account the staggering and the shaky movements, the man was probably drunken enough that he won't be able to remember anything that happened before he passes out later. "Not today, no."

He nodded, raising the glass in his hand. "Good choice there. I'd rather not get any myself, but once you start on your first…" he trailed off, leaving his sentence unfinished in favor of drinking the alcoholic liquid.

A thought occurred to him and he wondered if this man–even if he was drunk–could provide some useful information. If he did, then Luxord wouldn't have to return empty-handed and it would excuse him for seeking shelter in a tavern. "Tell me, have there been any strange events occurring around here lately? Things that seem out of place and have no reasonable explanations?"

"None that I cant think of. Just the usual everyday stuff; pirates attacks, pirates take and kill what and who they want, pirates leave."

"So there have been no signs of anything out of the ordinary?"

He took a few more swigs from his drink. "Nope." More incoherent mumbling followed at this point, effectively halting the conversation. Luxord considered what little he had managed to get from the man. Either the Heartless had not reached this place yet or these people welcomed the creatures with open hands. He wasn't sure if that would qualify as evidence worth believing to Xemnas, so the risks of returning empty-handed were still there.

Suddenly, the other man's head snapped up from its downcast position, a dazed look apparent in his eyes. "Can I interest you in a story? It's a rather good one I heard from a friend of mine from work."

Deciding he still had time to spare, Luxord accepted the offer. "What kind of tale are you proposing?"

The man's grin grew, stretching as it length grew. "It's a strange tale, indeed. One you won't regret hearing. Have you ever heard of the Black Pearl?" He took another few gulps from the almost-finished drink, not seeming to want an answer. "People say the Black Pearl is the fastest ship ever to sail the ocean seas. She moves as swift as the ocean's breezes, carrying the vilest crew of pirates ever. A hundred times more violent and even more dangerous, the pirates of the Black Pearl are notorious for their greedy looting and treachery."

The tale sounded familiar but Luxord couldn't place it; perhaps he had overheard a similar story before. "There was news of them all over the place. Everyone was warned to be careful, to report all possible sightings of the ship. Then," he paused, unsteadily gazing at Luxord, "all of sudden, they disappeared. They vanished without a trace, ship and crew. No one knows what became of them. Some say they were caught and thrown into Davy Jones's locker, submitted to eternal slavery. Some said they found a great treasure and are now spending it all away on life's many pleasures." Finished with his tale, the man leaned back once more, right hand never leaving the glass of intoxicating drink.

Luxord considered the tale, debating its authenticity. "How true is the Black Pearl?" he asked

"Well, that depends. I, for one, can tell you that the Black Pearl is very much real. Others might think differently. It's entirely up to you."

"I see." He wondered if Xemnas would consider the story as useful information. It was hard to tell what their 'leader' was thinking most of the time; the man seemed to spend a lot of his time in his room and the few times Luxord had seen him, the man had worn an unreadable expression.

His thoughts were once again interrupted when the man sitting in front of him said, "You look kind of familiar. Have we perhaps run into each other before?"

Luxord took that as his cue to leave. Getting up, he said, "I can't say I can recall ever meeting you before. Either way, I thank you for your…interesting tale. It was a very entertaining listen." Before the other man could say anything else, he left the table, walking to the door of the tavern. Once outside, he made his way back towards the isolated place earlier, ignoring the rain falling on him, wetting his clothes. Only when he was sure no one would see him did he open a portal back to the castle.

After making his way through the completely still blue path, he arrived in his room, only mildly surprised to see the Gambler Nobodies on his bed. At his entrance, they got off his bed, floating in the air for a while before settling on his chair and table. Luxord decided there was no harm in leaving them in his room while he reported to Xemnas–it wasn't like he had ever witnessed them doing anything havoc-inducing–, so he didn't say anything.

Instead of walking to his destination, he again opted for warping, summoning another portal in front of him. A few steps found him gazing at Xemnas's door and he knocked a couple of times on it. He heard the man's voice soon after, granting him permission to enter, so he turned the doorknob and did so.

Not very much to his surprise, Xemnas was not alone; he had noticed that some of the first six members of the Organization tend to spend a good deal of time with the silver-haired man, discussing things Luxord had stopped pestering himself with. He did, however, feel quite surprised to see Xigbar being the one in Xemnas's room this time, standing next to the table.

The sniper looked just as shocked as Luxord felt, surprise coloring his face before it was replaced with a wide grin. "Well, look who's back from his first mission. Kicked any Heartless ass, by any chance?"

Unsure of whether he should stay or leave, Luxord left the door open, ignoring Xigbar's words as he looked at Xemnas. "If I'm interrupting something, I can come by again some time later."

The dark-skinned man shook his head, his movements as slow as always. "No, you're not interrupting. The conversation Xigbar and I were having has already ended." At his words, Xigbar glanced sharply at Xemnas, grin never leaving his face but expression hardening slightly. "What news do you have of Port Royal?"

"Yeah, tell us all about your mission." Xigbar's gaze had left Xemnas and was now being directed his way, the grin having changed to the usual smirk. "Make sure you include everything that happened. Don't leave out a single thing, including the reason why you're wet." He paused, gazing thoughtfully. "You know, you always seem to end up wet somehow. I wonder why. It's not like you're much of a water person anyways."

He resisted the temptation to ask about the two men's earlier conversation; he pushed the door close, hearing it shut gently. He glanced briefly at Xigbar–who had made absolutely no move to excuse himself–, still curious about the reason behind the sharp look and ignoring the jab about him being wet–apparently, he had forgotten about that–, before obliging, relating the past events in Port Royal, including the story he had heard from the drunk man at the tavern.

**End of 13th chapter**

You know, when I started this story, I honestly didn't think it'd get very many reviews; my highest hopes were around 5 or so. It's got 21 now! does a little dance in mind It makes me so HAPPY! Thank you, everyone!

I understand how my pessimism is annoying (it annoys me too, sometimes, believe me) so I'd like to apologize about that. It's just that it comes naturally for some stupid reason. So, that being said, this time around I'll keep my opinions to myself, 'kay? Not a word from me.

By the way, Porporino the III, I'm a girl. And no, I don't think you're an ass. Why would I? I thought about putting it in my profile thingy but then I didn't. And thanks for the review for the other story.

Thanks again, you guys! You people are really great dudes and I owe you big, big time!


	14. Neophytes

Somehow, I managed to get this done in time. I'm pretty surprised, actually. 

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter 14 : Neophytes**

"Are you sure you don't want to go back?"

"Yes."

"Absolutely sure?"

"Yes."

"Are you absolutely, one hundred percent confident you most definitely don't want to go back?"

"Yes, Xigbar, I'm sure."

"Fine." There was a short pause before he said, "Seriously?"

Luxord sighed, looking up from his cards to glance briefly at the man sitting in front of him. "If you're that eager to see Port Royal, just go. There's no need to attempt to persuade me into going with you."

"You think I don't know that?" he said, grinning. "It's just that it's not going g to be much fun going there alone. I don't even know my way around the place. What if I get lost?"

"Not so good for you, all the better for me," he replied, counting the points he got.

"Oh, haha. Very funny, dude. I'm dying from the laughter," Xigbar said, sarcasm entering his voice. "Os that any way to treat the person that made it possible for you to sit here, on your bed, in your room, in the first place?"

He pretended to consider it. "No, I suppose not, but it seemed like the best response. Besides, wasn't Xemnas the one that found me?

"Well, yeah, but I was the one that brought you here. Without me, how would you have come here?"

"True, but you _did_ spend three days spying on me. How can you still not know your way around?"

"I prefer the term 'kept an eye on'. It sounds way cooler."

"Of course. You kept an eye on me. Also, you deliberately hid you presence, revealing yourself only after I wasted away three days trying to figure out how to contact Xemnas again."

"Hey, it's not my fault you never noticed me."

"Indeed. Perhaps it was because you were hiding on purpose while you _spied_ on me?" Xigbar opened his mouth, ready with a retort but Luxord spoke before he could. "And should you somehow end up lost after spending three days in Port Royal, you need only teleport yourself back to the castle."

"That sort of takes the fun out of things, doesn't it? The whole point of going there is to explore anyways. You know, see the sights, meet the people."

"So, go. There's nothing standing in between you and you exploration." He finished counting Xigbar's points, totaling them to their latest amount. He started collecting the cards, pushing them into a neat stack.

"I said the whole point of the trip is to explore. Getting lost along the way isn't part of it."

"Why are you so interested in the Black Pearl anyways?" he asked, shuffling as he voiced his question.

"Just because," he said, easily avoiding providing a real answer.

Luxord finished shuffling and set the stack of cards down on the bed in front of him, not bothering to push for a better answer. He took the topmost card of the deck and Xigbar's hand followed soon after, taking ht next card. They both continued on like that, alternately taking cards until they each had ten. Luxord turned his cards over, counting the points he had. His cards consisted of two Jacks, one ten, three eights, three sixes, and one four. That brought his total amount of points to 88.

He looked up to see Xigbar frowning at his cards, the expression almost to the point of glaring at the. The sniper flicked a quick look in the direction of his cards before his gaze returned to his own. Sighing dejectedly, he pushed his cards closer towards Luxord. "Why do I even bother playing with you?"

Luxord decided not to answer that; instead he gathered all the cards into another stack, merging them with the other cards and shuffling them. "That's the 10th game in my favor. You owe me three answers."

He waved a hand in the air, as if to dismiss the notion. "Yeah, yeah, you cheater. What's it going to be this time?"

Ignoring the jab, he thought of his next question. This was how they played for answers now–or rather how he played for answers, since Xigbar never won–; both having gotten either tired or bored of continuous poker, they had agreed to merely drawing cards and counting the points to decide the winner. Honestly, though, Luxord couldn't say he saw the difference but he was still getting his answers, so he didn't really mind.

Deciding on a question, he said, "How did your hometown look like?"

Xigbar grinned again, using his hands to support himself as he leaned back. "Didn't you already ask that question?"

"Yes, I did. Your answer, however, was not very satisfying," he replied, remembering the sniper's one-worded answer.

"Well, let's see. I suppose I could tell you that people thought it was pretty, but you probably already know that." Xigbar said, his gaze thoughtful. "It was a pretty normal town, really. Shops here, houses there, people everywhere. Nothing spectacular." There was a brief moment of silence before Xigbar said, "There was this one thing, though, that people found really interesting."

That piqued his curiosity, just a bit. "Oh?"

"The ground was prone to shooting out lots of shiny light into the sky."

He didn't respond immediately, unsure if he had heard the other man right. "I beg your pardon?"

"Yup. Lot's of light and stuff. And it almost always snowed light, too."

"Snowed?"

"Or rained. Whichever you prefer, though I think 'snowed' fits better since the light wasn't exactly wet," Xigbar said matter-of-factly.

"How did it snow light?" Luxord was still trying to figure out if the other man was joking or not. He tried to picture it but what did the other man mean by 'snowed' light?

The sniper smirked, smug amusement tainting his face. "Is that supposed to be your second question or something?"

He resisted the urge to sigh; at least he had gotten something out of the question, even if the answer had only succeeded in bringing up another question. Moving on to his next question, he said, "What kind of student were you?"

"You're still thinking about that? Dude, I'm surprised. No, wait," he paused, pretending to reconsider. "No, I'm not surprised."

"Just answer the question, Xigbar."

"I was a student, what more of an answer do you want? I was just one of Ansem's five, well, six apprentices."

"A student would have studied something. What were you studying?"

"You know, the basics. We learned the scientific things, the properties of magic spells, the structures of the human body. That kind of thing. After a while, we started doing some research on hearts and stuff. Did a whole bunch of papers and lots of experimenting."

A thought occurred to him. "Were you…smart?"

Xigbar's expression turned into one of mock hurt. "Of course," he said indignantly. "What, did you think I was an idiot?"

"Yes, I did." 'And still do,' he silently added.

"What ever gave you that idea?"

"You don't exactly behave like an intelligent person. In fact, you act like one whose intellectual capabilities are lower than that of a child's."

"Is that another one of your sorry attempts at humor? 'cause if it is, I have to tell you, it's not funny."

"I assure you, it wasn't." Again Xigbar opened his mouth to respond and again Luxord interrupted him. "Shall we move on to the next question?"

Xigbar crossed his arms, still wearing a slight glare. "Dude, you have absolutely no respect for your superiors."

"I would have thought my one and only Superior is Xemnas."

The sniper rolled his eyes. "Fine. Your lieges, then." There was a short pause in which he plucked a card from the neat stack in between them before saying, "How come you get to ask all the questions?"

Luxord looked up, meeting the other man's gaze and answered, "Seeing as how I win all the card games, there isn't much of a point to that question, is there?"

"Of course there is. It's not really fair that you get to do all the asking to satisfy your never-ending curiosity and eternal desire for answers," he said, voice becoming sarcastic. "I have my set of questions too, you know."

He raised an eyebrow, interested. "You do?"

Xigbar nodded. "Yup."

Taking a moment before answering, he considered it. "What are they?"

A look of surprise crept into his face. "Are you going to answer them or are you just going to listen to them and not say anything?"

"I might answer, might not. It depends entirely on the question you ask."

"That's not very fair either, dude," he pointed out.

"Then I propose a deal. I'll answer one of your questions, no matter the question, in exchange for an authentic, truthful answer to my third question." Luxord looked at the man in front of him. "Well? Are you interested?"

Xigbar said, "You mean all I have to do is promise an answer to your third question? And you'll definitely answer mine?"

"That's all."

"Dude, it's a done deal."

"Good." Then he added a reminder. "Just keep in mind your side of the bargain. And by that I mean actually answering my question, not avoiding them by giving evasive responses."

"Me? Avoid the question? As if," Xigbar said. "As for my question, well, what should it be?" he murmured, a small grin playing at his lips.

In a way, Luxord was eager for the question; while continuously beating Xigbar at every game they played and asking questions–which he only occasionally received proper answers to–may be a good source of entertainment, hearing the other man say he had a question was interesting too. Therefore, even though he had agreed to a question he might prefer not to answer, it was a risk he had already considered and was prepared to take. The question might give him some sort of clue as to what the sniper spent his time thinking about, since he was sure doing things for the fun of it were not the only things occupying the man's thoughts.

"Do you think," Xigbar began, "this is going to work?"

"What do you mean by 'this'?"

"I mean Xemnas's plan. Do you really think it's going to work? That all we have to do is get Kingdom Hearts and we'll all have hearts again?"

Luxord considered it, trying to see what else the sniper could have meant by the question. "His plan seems logical."

To which Xigbar responded by rolling his one visible eye. "Logical. Right. Getting this dude who waves a key around to kill off a bunch of Heartless and release the hearts so we can collect those hearts and make Kingdom Hearts to get _our_ hearts back is totally logical. Yup. Perfectly ordinary."

"As logical as things can get in our situation," he amended. "Technically, having your heart ripped by creatures that are hearts that were ripped out and swallowed by darkness in the first place isn't exactly a very ordinary thing either."

"Well, yeah, but don't you think it's too simple?"

"Your point?"

"If we're incomplete people whose hearts have left the bodies and the Heartless are hearts that were taken by the darkness and all we have to do to get our hearts is get the key-dude to kill a bunch of the Heartless for us…don't you think it sounds weird?"

"Yes, Xigbar, it does sound odd. However, the idea of unfinished beings such as us is just as weird."

"But you've accepted it? You know that's what he wants us to do and you're going to do it?"

"I can't speak for you or any of the other Nobodies, but I would like to have my heart back."

He sighed. "I suppose. I just don't think this is going to work out very well. Anyways," he said, grin returning as all traces of earlier seriousness vanished, "What's your third question?"

Luxord had given his next question a lot of thought and even then he couldn't say why he wanted to know so much; as far as he could see, it held no significance whatsoever but the question would not stop nagging at his mind. The only reason he hadn't asked the sniper about it before was because he had no guarantee of an answer. Now, however, seemed like the perfect time to ask. "What is your original name?"

The sniper blinked. "What?"

"During my first few days here, you mentioned remembering your original name, along with the other first six members. What is yours?"

"Why the heck would you want to know something like that?"

He gave a light shrug. "Why not?"

"Because, dude, I don't see any reason for you to want to know." He tilted his head. "What do you want my original name for?"

"I'm just curious."

"Ever heard of 'curiosity killed the cat'?"

"Yes, I have. How fortunate it is for me that I am not one."

Xigbar didn't respond to that, falling silent for a long time. The silence continued and stretched on for so long that Luxord thought he was once again going to be deprived of his answer, but then the sniper said, "Braig."

"Braig," he repeated, wanting confirmation.

"Braig."

Luxord nodded. Absently, he wondered what his original name was. The so-called 'fits' had not come to him for quite some time now, but it wasn't like he was complaining; he hadn't managed to learn very much about his previous life anyways. He gestured towards the card and asked, "Care for another round?"

"No, not really." He reached out to take the cards. "Can I shuffle?"

"Go ahead." Luxord watched the sniper's hands as he shuffled, noting the way they moved at a reasonably good speed and the lack of cards spilling out of the stack in his hands.

Suddenly, a glowing portal appeared at the side of the bed, startling the both of them. Xigbar jumped slightly and stopped shuffling, tensing at the sudden intrusion. He only relaxed again when a Gambler Nobody stepped out.

"Hey, dude, next time tell them to come without the 'sudden' part, okay?"

Luxord was quite surprised himself. "What is it doing here?"

"You tell me. It's your little Nobody."

The Nobody spoke. _More have appeared._

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Xigbar frown. "More of what?" the sniper asked.

_More of us,_ it replied. _Two more have arrived._

"Do you mean more human Nobodies?" Luxord asked; since the lower-ranked Nobodies wouldn't normally report addition to their numbers, it had to be something that didn't happen regularly.

"Two? At the same time?"

The Nobody remained mute, probably unsure of who to answer first.

"Two at the same time?" he repeated his question to Luxord.

"Probably." To the Nobody, Luxord said, "Describe them."

_One is painted with the light, as the fortress has been. The other is cloaked in the darkness, as are you. Both are golden-headed._

Xigbar got off the bed. "Well, isn't that interesting. Where are they now?"

_Not together, they are apart from each other. One is closer, the other further. Amongst the buildings that blink they wander, close to where**they** lie in wait._

"Well, let's go check out what's going on," he said, moving in the direction of the door. After telling the Nobody it could leave, Luxord went after the sniper. Once he reached him, Xigbar turned the knob and opened the door.

A Sniper Nobody was lingering nearby, walking on thin air much like the way the superior they had chosen to imitate sometimes did. _There are more,_ it said in lieu of a greeting.

"Yeah, so we've heard. Where are the others?" the sniper said curtly.

_Most are in the dining room, waiting. The raging one is with the Superior._

"Okay." He turned around and said, "To the kitchen!"

Amused, Luxord said, "You sound excited."

He opened a portal. "Yeah. Aren't you?"

Not bothering to answer, he stepped into the portal first, arriving at the kitchen before Xigbar did.

The kitchen was slightly cramped; with nine people occupying it, it was hard for it be otherwise. He didn't budge from the spot he was standing on, making no move to join the crowd. Neither did Xigbar, for that matter, who was eyeing the slight crowd.

"What are the odds of two people Nobodies appearing at the same time, on the same world?" he asked.

"Reasonably low but apparently, not impossible."

The sniper didn't say anything else, tapping his foot softly as he waited impatiently. They were both silent until a portal appeared and Xemnas stepped out of it, followed by Saix.

"Xemnas, what of them?" Vexen asked.

Lexaeus was more precise. "Where are they?"

"Out in the streets of the Dark City, most probably."

"Shouldn't someone go get them?"

"Interesting question, Number IX," Xemnas said, sounding thoughtful. "Should we send someone after these two Nobodies?"

The blonde hesitated. "Is that a trick question?"

"They_are_ Nobodies, Xemnas. Don't you think we should go look for them?"

"But isn't it odd, both of them appearing at the same time?" Zexion questioned, reminding Luxord of Xigbar's earlier words. "That doesn't usually happen."

"It doesn't _usually_ happen. It doesn't mean it's impossible."

"Then, Vexen, explain why one of them is supposedly wearing something other than a black jacket,"

"Maybe one of them is a girl."

"Larxene's a girl, Demyx. She was wearing the jacket."

The girl said. "Who cares anyways?"

"I want to know why," Zexion insisted.

"As fascinating as that may be, we should probably go find these two first." Xaldin turned to Xemnas. "We can question after that."

"That seems reasonable," he agreed. "Who would like to go?"

Axel spoke up. "I'll go. It's not like there's anything to do here, anyways."

"Allow me to go too. We can each look for one of them. It'll save time."

"It is decided," Xemnas said. "Axel and Marluxia will both search for the two new arrivals. I want you two back here with them as soon as possible. The rest of you are to remain and here and wait for their return. Do not leave the castle in your own pursuit." With that, he left through another portal.

Luxord watched as Axel and Marluxia immediately disappeared, both leaving using separate portals. Various conversations started again, and the kitchen buzzed slightly with the mixture of questions and the beginnings of arguments. Xigbar turned to him and asked, "Is it just me, or did all of that go by really fast?"

"It did happen quite fast," he agreed.

"I thought as much," the sniper said. "So, what do we do now?"

"I suppose, we wait."

"I know that. I meant in the _meantime_, what do we do?"

"Would you like to play another round of poker?"

"No thanks, and this time I mean it." Xigbar gave him a look. "Dude, do you ever do anything other than play cards?"

"I tolerate you. Does that count as something?"

The sniper crossed his arms. "No, it doesn't."

"Ah, then my answer is no."

"Figures." Xigbar promptly sat down on the floor. "Don't you think Zexion's right? It is kind of odd that one of them is wearing white."

Luxord only gave it a moment's consideration before sitting down next to the sniper. "Why do you say that?"

"Because everyone else was wearing the jackets when we found them. Plus, we can make the jackets from the darkness. If one of the Nobodies is wearing white, it probably means something, right?" he said. "It's like saying he wasn't made from the darkness."

"I don't see how that could happen, considering the fact that all Nobodies were reborn through the darkness."

"That's just the thing. It doesn't exactly make sense. How can you be a Nobody and not be made from the darkness?" He paused. "Maybe he really isn't made from the darkness," he mused.

"It's an interesting notion, Xigbar. Make sure you ask for confirmation once they get here."

"Aren't you curious about it at all?"

Before he could answer, a portal appeared yet again in the kitchen. Luxord got up and the sniper beside him followed suit, saying, "That was fast."

Luxord half-expected Marluxia to step out and be the one to return first. Much to his surprise, however, it was Axel who stumbled out of the portal, one hand balancing him as the other held onto the limp body he carried. He staggered a few steps before collapsing onto the floor, one arm still firmly wrapped around the lifeless figure.

"How is he?" Xaldin asked, sounding more curious than concerned.

The redhead panted, seemingly out of breath. Then he looked up, a somewhat amazed smirk on his face, his words coming out in short gasps. "He's a Keybearer."

**End of 14th chapter**

I realized I didn't say this earlier so I'll mention this now: to you guys who mentioned Marluxia's hair color, many thanks! I've sort of decided I won't do anything about it though, so…yeah.

Again, I'll keep my opinions to myself. Your's, however, is important, so do let me know what you think, if you have time. If not, then it's okay. We thank you for your time!


	15. Fighting for Castle Oblivion

It's finally done! Chapter 15 is here! It's here! Yes!

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter 15 : Fighting for Castle Oblivion**

The form of the two Nobodies' Others came into light a few days later. Roxas was the Nobody of the Keybearer, the one Xemnas was planning to use as a pawn in his elaborate plans. Namine, on the other hand, was the Nobody of one of the seven Princesses of Light, one who was a close friend of the Keybearer.

Xigbar had managed to extricate the information from a very frustrated and uncooperative Vexen one night; the only reason the man had given in was probably due to his gloves–which he claimed to need for his experiments–that had apparently take a strange liking to mysteriously disappearing and seemed determined to avoid him until he answered the sniper's questions. Xigbar wasted no time in sharing his newfound information, and although Luxord didn't exactly appreciate being roughly woken up in the middle of the night by someone pouncing onto him, he found it hard to muster any form of anger–aside from the automatic glare–towards Xigbar at that.

Roxas and Namine; according to Vexen, Xigbar had said, both were Nobodies born in an unusual way, causing them to differ from all the other Nobodies. One was a Nobody whose Other's heart had been found and returned to its original condition, rendering the Nobody more incomplete than the rest as he had to share one body with his Other. The other was in a position worse than the first; when her heart was taken by the darkness, no Heartless had been formed due to the lack of darkness in the first place. That heart, too, had been miraculously recovered by the Other and the body had to be split two ways as well.

It was no wonder both Roxas and Namine seemed so fragile sometimes.

Nevertheless, Roxas was no pushover; Luxord had seen the boy with his two Keyblades once and decided that a fight with him was a thing best avoided. Xigbar had agreed with him then, but that didn't stop the man from throwing teasing remarks and mocking comments in the boy's direction. _For entertainment_, he had said, grinning widely when Luxord had questioned him.

Another thing that changed was that, after bringing his limp form to the castle that day, Axel had stubbornly refused to leave Number XIII's side from then onwards. The redhead was constantly with Roxas, though whether he was there with or without the younger Nobody's consent was something Luxord didn't know. More than once the other members of the Organization had attempted to lure him away from Roxas, but so far, no one had succeeded; Axel would always find his way back to the neophyte's side and after a while, they gave up trying.

While Xemnas had Roxas constantly on his feet–in between training sessions and missions meant to measure the extent of his abilities, Luxord couldn't see why Roxas wasn't protesting yet–, Namine spent most of her time indoors, drawing. When Luxord stopped by her room for a short visit Xigbar had insisted they have, he was struck by the amount of papers scattered across the table and floor. On each paper was a rather childish drawing of a person he assumed was the boy chosen by the Keyblade. The boy was in all of them, though they were all different situations sketched onto a piece of paper.

_Memories, probably_, Xigbar had commented when he handed Luxord the drawing he had picked up from the floor.

The girl hadn't looked up at their entrance, the color pencil in her hand making soft scratching sounds as she moved her hand over the paper in front of her. Nor did she so much as flick a glance their way when Xigbar moved closer to her. In the end, when all attempts at conversation failed and the words drifted dejectedly through the air, Luxord had suggested coming back another time. It took some persuading, but Xigbar finally relented with a sigh.

Then Marluxia came back from a mission with news of an empty castle. With an innocent expression plastered onto his face, he had eagerly suggested using the fortress as a second base for the Organization during dinner that night.

Dinner was never quite the same again.

It always took a rather predictable route; the meal would begin peacefully enough with only a small amount of talk going on. Then, either Marluxia or Vexen would make a sly remark on the abandoned castle's matter and slowly, voices would be raised higher and higher. Eventually, what started as a quiet mealtime would change into a debate, pushed onwards as the heated argument continued in between two stubborn speakers.

This time, it dragged on for so long, Luxord found himself tapping Xigbar lightly on the shoulder and saying, "I don't know about you, but anytime soon would e a good time to leave to me."

He made a tsk-ing sound. "What? Bored already?" Then he pointed a finger at Luxord. "Shame on you, Luxord. You should pay more respect to the hard work of our fellow members."

"You're one to talk," he said, choosing to ignore the irritating finger hovering in front of him. "Do not think you're yawns went unnoticed."

Xigbar grinned. "Was I that obvious?"

"Needless to say, yes, you were."

"Oh, well." He stood up and cleared his throat to catch Xemnas's attention. Once he did, he said, "Hey, Xemnas. Luxord and I are leaving, okay?" Number I gave a distracted nod which Xigbar immediately responded to by turning around and walking out of the kitchen. Luxord got up, too, and followed the sniper out.

Once they were outside, Xigbar said, "You'd think that after one hour of non-stop arguing, they'd give it a rest already. I mean, don't their throats hurt from all that yelling? Or is it supposed to be fun?"

"I'm sure they're having the time of their lives," he responded dryly. "Marluxia seems bent on getting his way, but I doubt Vexen is going to let him."

"Probably. That guy will argue for the rest of his life before he'll let Marluxia become the leader in Castle Oblivion," Xigbar said, using the term Axel had jokingly dubbed the fortress.

"That sounds like a thing he might do. Just out of curiosity, though," he said, "where exactly are we heading to?"

"Where?" Xigbar responded, sounding amused and stopping. "Well, since the kitchen is obviously occupied, and going back to your room again doesn't sound very exciting at the moment, what do you say to a quick trip to Namine's room?"

"Xigbar, our last visit was four days ago," he sighed.

"Hey, four days is a long time, dude," Xigbar protested. "That's like, a whole 96 hours. 96 hours is a long time."

"Why are you so insistent on getting her to talk?"

"I'm just curious. She's not like us, you know. Besides, won't it be cool if I can get her to talk before anyone else does?"

"The others have done everything they could think of. Everything failed. They stopped trying. Is there a reason you refuse to do the same?"

Xigbar ignored his question. "I'm sure there's a trick to it somehow. The right question should definitely do it. All I have to do is figure out what that right question is. Hey, any ideas, oh mighty Lord-of-Questions?"

Luxord resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Fine," he said, seeing no other option and giving in, "but I'm not going in. Do what you must in there, but I'll be waiting for you outside."

"What? That's crazy! You can't just stand outside and wait for me. I could take hours. Think how long you'd have to do nothing but stand in one spot. You'd kill your legs!"

"If you were to really take hours, it would be a simple matter of opening a portal and warping to my room."

"Aren't you even a little bit interested? Don't you want to know more?" he asked.

"Perhaps. Still, I see no point in going in. You'll tell me whatever information you've learnt later anyways."

"Oh, is that how it goes?" Xigbar asked, putting his hands on his hips. "I do all the dirty work and you just sit back and relax and wait for me to tell you?"

"If I were to recall correctly, I never requested that you keep me informed to begin with. You did that entirely on your own. However, since you were so eager to share what you found out, I decided to just let you. In a way, it's to my benefit, right?"

"Is that so?"

"Yes, that's so."

"So what will you do if I stopped telling you what I find out? Hmm? How are you going to get your precious information then?"

"I'll get my _precious_ information out of you still. After all, there's always time for a game or two of cards these days."

"And what if I refused to play with you?" Xigbar asked smugly.

"You won't," he replied easily, "because you would never back down from a challenge."

Xigbar responded by giving him a look of mock offence. Then he opened a portal, took hold of Luxord's right arm and practically dragged him–who was caught off guard and almost tripped, but managed to mostly catch himself and only stumbled slightly–into the portal in front of them.

The next moment, Luxord found himself face to face with a white door which he guessed was Namine's. Arm still interlocked with Xigbar's, he could practically see the huge grin the man would have on his face around now; any attempt to catch Luxord off guard, be it successful or not, always ended with a grin that Luxord had seen so often, it was of no trouble to picture. He waited for the world around him to cease its spinning before saying to the man beside him, "You may release my arm now, Xigbar"

Said man only grinned at him, making no move to do so. "Nah, not yet. I'm going to give persuading you to go in with me another go."

"As I told you earlier, I'm _not _going in."

"Come on, dude. It won't kill you. You don't even have to say anything. You can just stand in one corner and I'll do the talking for the both of us. It'll be like you're not even there," Xigbar said, stubbornly persisting in pushing the issue.

"If that is how it will be, I think I'd rather not. What would be the point of asking me to go with you if I won't be doing anything?"

"Hey, it's the thought that counts right?"

Luxord raised an eyebrow at that. "Your point would be…?"

"My point is that it's the thought that counts. You know, a 'just-so-I-know-you're-there' kind of thing?"

He felt the need to point something out. "Xigbar, she's a teenage girl."

"Uh, yeah, so?" Xigbar said.

"You are a grown man who is able to move at a very fast speed whenever you wish. Also, you have the ability to materialize guns out of thin air, should you need to use them."

Xigbar replied by rolling his uncovered eye, and Luxord's attention was caught by the man's eye patch, though not for the first time. He looked away immediately, hoping that the other man had not noticed–the last thing Luxord needed the sniper to know was how often Luxord had wondered what was under the eye patch–and waited for the man to speak. "Dude, I didn't mean it that way. What do you think I am, a chicken?"

"Does that mean you are not, in fact, afraid of a little blonde girl who spends most of her time drawing?"

"Afraid? Of her? As if!" he exclaimed.

"If that is so, why would you need me there?"

Xigbar opened his mouth to say something, only to close it once more. He tilted his head to the side and gave Luxord a look, not saying anything. Then he let out a slightly exasperated sigh. "You're hopeless beyond saving, you know that?"

Before Luxord could ask him what his last comment meant, Xigbar turned the doorknob–after releasing his hand–and disappeared into the room. Left by himself with only silence for company, he swallowed a sigh and wondered what to do next.

There was, of course, the option of playing cards–though he would have to make them float in mid-air, since there was no way he was going to sit down on the floor and play–while waiting. But solitaire didn't seem very appealing, so perhaps he should think of something else. He could always just play around with magic spells on his card; he had learned a meager amount of spells from Xigbar, though he found that he preferred to not use them. However, toying with cards in the middle of a hallway might seem a tad bit strange to passersby and he didn't want any questions.

Luxord hoped Xigbar would come out soon because he didn't think he was very keen about idea of waiting for hours.

Because although he _had_ said warping back to his room was of no problem, he wasn't exactly eager about going off and leaving just like that. At least, not yet, anyways.

Deciding on option number two for the time being, Luxord made a deck of cards appear in his palm with a slightly resigned gesture of his hand. Reduced to having cards float around in the air–and he realized how pathetic that might sound–to keep him entertained, he tried to mentally prepare himself for what might be a few long hours of waiting.

With a silent thought, he sent the cards flying into the air, which were randomly making patterns as they moved about. His control over the cards was near perfect now and he could make the cards to do all types of tricks without really concentrating. Luxord was only half-watching, not really caring enough to pay attention to what his cards were doing when one of his Gamblers appeared not very far from where he was standing.

It moved a few feet closer, stopped, before lessening more of the distance with another leap. Eventually, the Gambler was standing next to him, attention apparently focused on the cards in front of him. After the silence stretched on without so much as a word from the lower-ranking Nobody and he was about to voice aloud the question in his head, the Nobody raised its hands. A short paused followed before, much to his surprise, cards flew out of the right sleeve and into the left, making a neat arc in the air.

The action continued repetitiously, cards going from the left into the right and back into the left. It seemed to juggle the cards, figure moving about even as the cards continued their semi circled journey through the air. Then the Gambler turned around and floated wordlessly away, just like that.

Absently, Luxord wondered what exactly it was that went through the minds of the lower-ranking Nobodies.

His mind registered a set of footsteps gradually becoming louder and he turned in the direction of the sound, half-expecting another Nobody. What he saw was, however, not just any Nobody, but a satisfied-looking Number XI who, by the look on his face, had gotten what he wanted.

Upon seeing him, Luxord's first though was to leave before the other man got close enough to strike up a conversation but in the end, he decided against it; it seemed like Marluxia had already spotted him anyways. That left him with only one option, one he didn't care much for.

He allowed the cards to disappear and tried his best to appear nonchalant–as if standing in the hallway alone was the most natural thing in the world–, not looking at the man coming closer and closer. Finally, when Marluxia stopped almost directly in front of him, the man spoke. "Might I ask why you're standing in front of Namine's room like this?"

Silently reminding himself to keep as blank an expression as possible, Luxord answered. "I'm waiting for someone."

This seemed to pique Marluxia's curiosity and this time, when he spoke, he had that smug look in his eyes again. "Is Number II the one you're waiting for, by any chance?"

"It might," he replied.

Marluxia smiled. "You spend quite a bit of you time with that man, don't you?"

He didn't think he liked the direction the conversation was taking. "Is that a problem?"

"No, of course not," he answered smoothly. "It's just, I find it a bit strange. Friendship between two beings who lack hearts? It's unusual, isn't it?"

"Perhaps, but whether or not it is unusual, the matter has nothing to do with you," Luxord said, trying to keep his voice at a normal level; he wasn't sure why, exactly, he felt angry but he'd rather Number XI didn't notice.

"True, but I'm only wondering." At his next comment, the smile on Marluxia's face grew. "Tell me, is any of it real?"

Luxord wasn't sure what to say, admittedly, he wasn't even sure what the other man's last sentence was supposed to mean. He did know, however, that he most definitely didn't like the way Marluxia had said it. At his silence, Marluxia only continued to smile, all the while looking perhaps more smug than Luxord had ever seen him before.

Suddenly, the door behind him opened and he turned around to see Xigbar stepping out. The sniper cast one glance in his direction before turning all of his attention on Marluxia. "Am I interrupting something?" the sniper asked.

"No, no," he replied, smile glued in place. "Luxord and I were just having a little chat."

"So, you're finished with your little _chat_, then?" Without waiting for an answer, Xigbar once again grabbed Luxord's arm and tugged it along as he began walking away. "Well, I guess we'll be leaving now. See you around, Number XI."

The grip on his arm was much tighter than the previous one but Luxord had no chance to protest; Xigbar was briskly moving further down the hallway, hence tugging Luxord along with him. Luxord chose not to say anything just yet, silently allowing the other man to lead the way as he matched the man's pace.

It was only after they had turned around a number of corners when Xigbar finally slowed down to a stop. The grip on his arm loosened slightly–something Luxord was grateful for; it had begun to hurt–and Luxord thought he heard Xigbar exhale softly. Before he could say anything, Xigbar turned around, grin on his face and said, "Dude, that guy is way creepy, don't you think so?"

**End of 15th chapter**

I'm sorry this thing took so long. I really, really am. Actually, I had already, written the first half of it when I decided I didn't like it and rewrote the whole thing all over again. Yeah.

Anyways, what's done is done. When I finished this I got really excited about the next chapter, and, yay! I think I almost have the rest of the story in my head. Almost. Hopefully, it'll reach the ending the right way, and soon, at that. I can't wait to read the whole thing all over again when the story's finished. Thanking you for your kind time!


	16. Ridiculous but Effective

It's turning March already? You're kidding! A note here, though. From here on, Sora will be referred to as the 'Keyblade bearer,' okay? I think it sounds a little better that way. I might go back and change the word for all the previous chapters, when there's time. Just might, mind you, no promises.

**Passion**

**Chapter 16 : Ridiculous but Effective**

No matter what Luxord said to get a proper answer, Xigbar refused to provide him with one. As a matter of fact, Luxord got the feeling the other man was deliberately avoiding his questions. He had tried everything, asked in every single way he could think of and nothing had worked. Somehow Xigbar always managed to find a way out of answering them. It could be a casual shrug, changing the topic or just down right ignoring him; whichever way he did it, Luxord did not get an answer.

In the end, he decided to leave the matter be. Maybe, should an opportunity show itself, he'll question the sniper's previous actions again. Until then, though, Luxord supposed he might as well as drop the whole thing.

He did, however, find out why Marluxia had looked so pleased with himself. The answer to that came easily the very next day. After everyone had settled down to dinner–during which, much to everyone's surprise, remained free of the now routinely arguments between Marluxia and Vexen, though Vexen looked more grim than usual–, Xemnas cleared his throat and announced, as if he was merely stating the never-changing weather of their world, that the Organization will indeed be using the empty castle as their second base. That said, he informed us that the skills of the Keyblade bearer and his friends were to be tested at said castle first before officially beginning the plan.

There was a brief moment of silence as everyone at the table took in the new piece of information. No one seemed to have any apparent problem with the announcement, save for Vexen whose expression had turned more sullen when Number I spoke. It was only when Xemnas named Marluxia as head of Castle Oblivion did the protesting start.

All the fight in Vexen seemed to have died out, and the man didn't even bother to attempt to change Xemnas's mind. The scientist sat in his chair, mouth closed and tight-lipped, wearing a defeated expression on his face.

It was Zexion that protested the loudest. His voice rang across the table, joined by Xaldin's and Lexaeus's, whose voice was considerably lower than his, and Axel's, who seemed to be protesting only because he could. Number VII only kept quiet, accepting without comment, and Demyx seemed unsure of what to do, eyes darting nervously from Number VI to Number I and back again.

Surprisingly, Xigbar didn't say a word either. He merely sat wordlessly in his seat, calmly watching the scene unfold in front of him. Even as Luxord waited for some sort of response to come, it never did. The man continued to remain silent, and Luxord could feel himself start to worry a little; it wasn't like the sniper to accept _anything_ Xemnas said without some sort of witty remark.

Eventually, Xemnas brought his hand down on the table, effectively bringing silence back. "Enough," he said in a firm tone, though his face remained the same. "The decision has been made. Number XI will be in charge of Castle Oblivion and all of those who will be accompanying him must accept that fact."

"Those accompanying him?" Zexion repeated, shocked. "Xemnas, do you mean to say that you're going to send others there to the castle as well? And that Number XI will be in charged of everything?"

"Yes, I am. Now sit down."

"But-" Zexion began.

"Number VI, _sit down_."

"But-"

"Hey, he told you to sit down, Zexion. So be a good little boy and sit down on your fucking chair and shut up," interrupted Larxene, earning a cold glare from the other man.

Zexion opened his mouth to speak when Xemnas said, "Zexion, sit down and be silent." Number VI shot a quick glance at Xemnas before returning to his former position on the chair, lips pressed into a thin line of disapproval.

"Who are you sending over there?" Axel asked with a smirk on his face.

Xemnas cleared his throat. "The members who will also be leaving for the Castle tomorrow are Number IV, V, VI, X, and XII. Also," he added to Marluxia, "you will be taking Namine with you."

At the mention of his name–or rather, his number–, Vexen sprang up from his chair. "What?" he demanded. "Xemnas, this was not part of the agreement."

"There was never an agreement, Number VII. You will head, with the others, to Castle Oblivion tomorrow."

"I am not going to take orders from him!"

"Perhaps, but you will abide by mine. You will go to the castle tomorrow and you will do as Number XI says, be it to you pleasure or not," Xemnas replied calmly.

As Vexen attempted to argue his case, Luxord considered his position. The notion of having Marluxia as his second superior was not a very pleasant one, and already he could feel dread creeping in from the back of his mind. Suddenly, he shivered involuntarily, though the motion was a small one. He looked up and saw Marluxia's smug gaze fixed on him from his position next to Larxene. Number XI looked extremely pleased with himself, more pleased than yesterday even, with his lips curled into a smile.

Before he could give in to the urge to ask the other man if he would kindly turn his attention elsewhere, Xigbar spoke to him in a low town. "Hey, Luxord."

Grateful for the excuse to avert his gaze, Luxord turned to the man sitting beside him, and because of the noise around him, he had to lean a little closer to catch what the sniper had to say. "What is it?"

"Are you looking forward to tomorrow?" he asked, and Luxord absently noted the serious tone he had said it in.

Hearing the other man's words–which he was not sure if they were mockery or not–, he could feel himself frown slightly. "Hardly," he replied, attempting to conceal the offence he had taken. "I'd much rather put up with you for years than obediently take orders from him."

Xigbar's response to that was to grin. "If you say so. But don't go taking that back later, dude." Then he raised his voice so as to be heard over the heated arguments still going on and asked, "Xemnas, can I say something?"

Number I looked at Xigbar. "Would it really make much of a difference to you, should I say no?"

"Sure it would. You are the 'Superior', after all."

Xemnas raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

"Absolutely," he replied in a serious tone. "If you say no, I won't say anything now. I'll just have to find a different time to say it. And if I remember correctly, the middle of the night isn't a very good time for questions, right?"

Number I sighed. "Go ahead, then."

"Thought you might say something like that." Xigbar said, grinning. "Right, then. I just wanted to say that I don't think the people you're sending over there is a very good choice. I mean, you have to even out the two groups, dude, or it'll become unbalanced."

Xemnas blinked once. "What are you trying to say, Number II?"

"I'm trying to say exactly what I'm saying. You've got to have balance in between the two groups. You know, like if one side gets too heavy, it'll topple over?" At the sniper's words, Luxord began to feel a small suspicion enter the back of his mind.

"So, you are suggesting that I replace one of the people I have chosen?"

"Exactly! See? You got my point. That wasn't so hard, now, was it?"

His suspicions having been confirmed, Luxord wasn't sure what he thought of it. Some part of him told him to stop the sniper from going any further with whatever plan it was he had in mind, but another part of him wanted to see the events that would follow. Not to mention the fact that if the plan did work, he wouldn't have to leave tomorrow. So instead of protesting, he merely watched Xigbar and Xemnas. "And whom, exactly, do you see best to be replaced?" Xemnas asked.

Xigbar acted surprised. "Why, Luxord, obviously," he said, speaking in a tone that made it sound like the most obvious thing in the world.

The table fell silent, and absently he wondered what thoughts were running through the other member's minds. One thing was clear, though; whatever they were, Marluxia certainly did not seem pleased by his. Number XI had an expression of utter disbelief on his face, and for once the arrogant look he usually wore had left him. It was such an unfamiliar thing to see that Luxord had to work hard to keep a straight face.

Finally, Number I spoke. "Do you an acceptable basis for your suggestion?"

"Yup."

"Really?" Vexen sneered, having recovered from his moment of shock. "Somehow, I sincerely doubt that."

"Well, look at it this way. Everyone messes up every now and then, so it's only fair to accept that even you can be wrong sometimes." Xigbar grinned. "It's okay, dude. We understand."

Before the conversation could change into yet another argument–seeing as how Number IV already had his mouth open, face wearing an affronted expression–, Lexaeus stepped in easily. "Let's hear it, Xigbar."

"Yes, let's," Marluxia said, and Luxord noticed that his earlier smile had returned somewhat.

Xigbar turned his attention back to Xemnas. "Well, don't you think it's kind of illogical to send both the Organization's strategists to Castle Oblivion? I mean, shouldn't one of them stay here?"

"Strategists?"

"Yeah. You and Luxord. And since Lexaeus is going, it makes more sense to send you there, right? Since you two have put up with each other for so long. Better to replace him," he added to Xemnas, "than to replace Zexion. That way, we'll have one here in this castle and the other in the other castle."

"Wait, wait. Back up," Axel said, holding his hands up in the air in front of him. "You classify the Organization?"

"As in, group us? Like these people in a group and these in another and stuff like that?" asked Demyx.

"That's one way to put it, yeah."

"And how exactly did you group us?"

"It's real simple, you know. Zexion and Luxord are, like I said earlier, the 'strategists', you and Saix are the 'dudes-with-swords-that-don't-really-look-like-swords,' and Vexen and Demyx are the 'people-whose-weapons-aren't-really-all-that-useful'. Then there's Axel and Roxas, the 'dudes-who-have-to-fight-with-two-weapons-because-they'd-probably-lose-with-only-one', Xaldin and Marluxia are the 'people-who-fight-with-weapons-that-look-like-long-sticks-with-an-extra-something-at-the-end' and that girl over there and I are the 'ones-who-fight-by-shooting-stuff-at-people." The sniper turned to Xemnas, "You're excluded, of course, since you're the leader and all and we have an odd number amount of members. Oh, and Namine too, because she can't fight."

When he was finished, Xigbar leaned back into his chair with a wide smirk on his face. The silence that followed, this time with Luxord's own surprise also being added to everyone else's, seemed longer than the last. After a long moment, Number IX broke it by saying, "Don't you have two guns?"

"Yeah, but I can't be in the two groups at the same time, dude," the sniper pointed out.

"Oh." Demyx considered the answer for a short moment. Then he said, "how come Zexion and Luxord get to have a one-worded group name?"

"I don't believe it," Zexion sighed. "All this time I thought you had the brains of a monkey, but apparently, I was wrong."

"So, now you have a different opinion?"

"Yes. It seems I've overestimated you."

Xigbar's only response was to grin. "You flatter me."

"Really, Xigbar. It's impossible to come up with a better way to group the Organization," Xaldin said, rolling his eyes.

"Hey, it's a perfectly good way to group the Organization. Which, by the way," he continued quickly as others started adding their own comments, "will now bring us back to the original issue."

Number I looked at Xigbar and spoke slowly, as if to confirm what he heard. "You think that Number X should stay behind as the strategists for this castle, whereas Number VI is to be the one for Castle Oblivion?"

"Yup."

"And you think that it would be for the best to replace him with someone else?"

"Right again, dude."

Luxord saw Xaldin lean forward and whisper something to the man sitting beside him. After a moment, Xemnas closed his eyes and gave a long-suffering sigh. "Fine, in the place of Number X, Number IX will go to Castle Oblivion."

"But, Superior," Marluxia protested, "surely you're not going to just accept his reasoning?!"

"Yes, I am. Number IX will accompany you tomorrow."

"But, Superior, wait a moment." Number XI calmed himself down somewhat, reducing his voice to a calmer level. "Demyx has no talent for fighting whatsoever. If the Keyblade bearer is to come to Castle Oblivion first, the presence of Number IX will be a disadvantage on our part. Besides," he added, making what seemed like a final attempt at altering Xemnas's decision, "if we _are_ going to use Xigbar's grouping, wouldn't it make more sense to send either Axel or Roxas?"

"Fine. Number VIII, you are to go to Castle Oblivion tomorrow. The same goes for Number IV, V, VI, XII and Namine. And that," he said firmly as Axel opened _his_ mouth to protest, "is the end of the matter." With that, he briskly announced the conclusion of the meeting and stared pointedly at the other members of the Organization until, one by one, everyone got up and exited the room.

Xigbar opened a portal and beckoned for Luxord to follow him. After they reappeared in Luxord's room, the sniper turned around and grinned madly at him. "So, what do you think? Was that brilliant or what?"

"It was unexpected," he admitted, sitting down on the bed, "though very much appreciated. How did you come up with that with such short notice?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," was the reply as Xigbar sat down next to him.

Luxord decided to let the question drop; the sniper had, after all, just saved him from being put under Marluxia's command and Luxord _did _know how to be grateful. There was, however, another thing he was curious about. "Were you that against Xemnas's decision?"

"You could say that."

"Oh?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Care to elaborate a little? Will you be so very bored without me around?"

"Let's just say," Xigbar said, not looking at him but instead taking hold of Luxord's left arm and giving his gloved palm a teasing poke, "I'd rather have you here than in some far off castle with _that_ guy, okay?"

**End of 16th chapter**

Finished! Yay! This is just another note, 'kay? There will probably be no updates for the next two weeks, due to the ridiculous and extremely annoying (which is only because I tend to do quite badly compared to the others) events of exams. Just so you all know and don't expect anything anytime soon.

Thank you all of you good, kind-hearted readers! Your reviews are very much appreciated! Even if I don't mention it, I hope you understand that it's the reviews that push me on towards finishing this story.

To Porporino the III, I do know about his element (many thanks for mentioning it, though; it think I forgot about it) but I'm not exactly sure what to do about it. So, I was sort of going to just leave it be unless something came up. Sorry. And life is as good as it can get (thanks you again), except for the thought of exams. And to Goldenfur, no offence was taken, really. It makes sense. Thank you.


	17. Sudden Collision

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter 17 : Sudden Collision**

The people chosen for the mission left the next day, departing mostly in low spirits after a grumble-filled breakfast. After they left, the castle felt oddly empty; even if 14 people never really did fill up the enormous place, Luxord couldn't help but think about how much quieter the castle had become.

A few days passed. So far there had been no news of the Keyblade bearer yet, which could be either good news or bad news; the opinions varied depending on which of the bored members in Castle Oblivion was voicing it.

Luxord was glad he wasn't one of them. While they were biding their time in Castle Oblivion, he had spent most of his time training with Xigbar. The sniper had wanted to work on his shooting–though in Luxord's opinion, there was very little work left to do, really; Xigbar's aim was near perfect and when there _was_ a chance of a missed target, the sniper just converted to trigger happy mode–, so they've been holding training sessions with each other for the past few days.

After the routinely morning snack, they trod out into one of the more open areas of the Dark City. Sometimes a group of Heartless would wander into view, but they were never much trouble. They would find a place that reached Xigbar's satisfaction and then they'd slip into the usual routine adopted from the past few days and the sparring would begin.

To speak honestly, Luxord had nothing against the daily exercises; it was good practice for him and he knew that. The only reason he never could look forward to them was because of the fact that he almost never managed to land a blow on his training partner.

If only them man would keep still.

Obviously, Xigbar preferred to keep moving. Usually, there isn't even a slight blur as he moves, only the sight of space bending around the area he was formerly at. One moment, the sniper could be standing a good distance away from him and the next thing he knew, Luxord was being pelted with more than a dozen bullets at a time whilst the sniper stood almost directly behind him. Now, although that was never a problem thanks to the cards that faithfully provided him with excellent protection, it meant that he was constantly on the defensive. What made matters worse was how rarely he got a chance to attack and whenever the opportunity did present itself, it was usually very small and narrow.

That day was no different than the others. Xigbar kept darting around between places, pausing briefly to fire a few shots in his direction. Luxord had his enlarged cards by his side, taking the blows for him as he waited patiently for an opening, or at least, _trying_ to wait patiently for a chance to attack, one which was happily hiding itself.

As usual.

Like mockery striving to further dampen his already low spirits, it had started raining some time ago, first a light shower, then a full-blown downpour. The result was that he was completely soaked, clothes sticking to his skin. The rain made his jacket heavier, which in turn made it more difficult to move about, and the growing number of puddles on the tiled floor did not help matters, giving away his every movement with a loud splash.

Luxord sighed irritably, watching his cards take another round of bullets for him. Absently, he wondered what it would be like to have control over gravity-based spells like Xigbar. The situation would probably be very different from his current one.

"Don't tell me you're tired already. We've only just started."

Xigbar had stopped moving, now dangling easily in his favored upside down position in the air, grinning widely. Luxord spared him a quick glance, taking note of the teasing voice as he flicked his eyes towards the sniper before returning his gaze to the wet ground. "I'm not."

"Really?" he asked. "You _look_ tired."

Ignoring the sniper's comment, Luxord responded with, "Are we going to continue, or would you prefer to abandon training for the sake of a 'yes' and 'no' argument?"

The sniper laughed. Then he was gone, leaving empty space behind him. More bullets rained down threateningly on Luxord only to be blocked by his cards. He tried to place Xigbar, but the offender never stayed in one spot long enough for his efforts to make much of a difference.

Suddenly he heard Xigbar's voice behind him, and he turned around to find a large blue bullet heading straight for him. He managed to jump out of harm's way but not before he felt the charged sparks prickling out of the blue bullet. The air to his right buzzed warningly as he considered the new move, and this time he managed to catch sight of Xigbar releasing his next shot. A second bullet made its way towards him and he cursed inwardly as he moved to avoid it.

When his cards deflected more red bullets, Luxord knew things were not in his favor. The normal shots made retaliating hard enough; an additional bullet that bounced off the walls wildly on its own in search of its target was certainly not welcome. And to top it off, there were two of the things.

As his positioned worsened with every passing minute, he continued to evade the bullets whilst constantly keeping an eye on the homing missile-like bullets, biding time. Perhaps the larger shots would disappear if waited long enough. Then he could attack before Xigbar fires another one. Forcing himself to stay calm, Luxord watched as a third blue bullet was made, and only grabbed his opportunity with eager hands when the fourth disappeared.

Xigbar had been about to release another charged bullet when Luxord moved in fast. Once the sniper was within his range he snapped his fingers and the cards protecting him immediately made for the sniper. Some of the cards managed to find its mark and Xigbar abandoned his earlier actions. More than a little pleased with his small victory, Luxord made for the sniper only to see Xigbar move elsewhere. There was a brief pause before the shooting resumed, which was just long enough for Luxord to join up with his cards again. Now Xigbar was firing continuously, stopping occasionally only to move to a different position or to reload his guns.

All of a sudden, a weary feeling washed over him. Surprised, he stopped moving and a bullet landed on the ground right next to his foot. He frowned, attempting to clear his mind, which had begun to cloud. As the dark feeling continued coming, he began to worry. Now was the worst time for a memory to flicker back, especially when he was at such a big disadvantage; he had no time to deal with it at the moment.

Not that the feeling was listening to him because it didn't lessen and fade away as he had hoped. Instead, it only increased and as a result, Luxord felt a bullet graze the side of his face. He flinched at the sudden pain and would have reached up to check for blood if not for the stubbornly insistent picture in his mind.

A huge fortress stood forlornly, facing the sea, its walls orange in the presence of the sunset. It was apparently still under construction but there was only a small portion of work left to be done. As he took in the view reluctantly, Luxord was vaguely aware of the fact that he had stopped moving completely and was now standing quite still, which meant he was utterly exposed to any attacks coming his way.

The subtle thought succeeded in jolting him out of his stupor, and he shook his head in an attempt to shake off the image. He was rewarded with the memory mostly disappearing, but the little bits that lingered behind mixed up with reality, joyously mutilating his vision.

He didn't know why he did it–perhaps it was the frustration due to his highly uncooperative mind and even more so surroundings, or perhaps because he panicked slightly at the thought of being vulnerable for so long–, but he didn't stop to think twice before yelling, "Stop!"

The air went still. Luxord shook his head, relieved that his mind had begun to clear. When the Dark City looked like a city again, he searched for signs of Xigbar and noticed the lack of bullets. To his surprise, the man he was looking for was standing completely still, though his feet were still in the air. A moment passed and when Xigbar remained motionless, Luxord warily made his way over to the sniper. Once he was standing almost directly underneath the other he said, "Xigbar?"

Xigbar's response sounded like it came through gritted teeth and his mouth barely moved. "Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

"Waiting," he answered shortly.

"…for what?"

"For you to undo what you did so I can move again."

Luxord frowned. "What did I do?"

"Stopped time, I think."

That took him by surprise and he wasn't sure if the sniper was joking. "Can that really be done?"

"Obviously. You just did it, didn't you?"

"How do I undo it?"

"I have no idea, but you'd better think of something quick. I feel sick."

Even though Xigbar said it a casual enough tone that it came out more like a joke than a serious statement, the last sentence was worrisome; 'sick' did not sound like a good thing especially when it came from someone who was currently hanging upside down, even if said person spent a lot of time in that position anyways. Luxord racked his brains in hopes of finding some sort of clue as to what should be done next, and the fact that he couldn't think of anything was not very helpful. Honestly, he didn't see how he could undo something when he didn't even know he had done it in the first place.

So when Xigbar twitched slightly, Luxord failed to notice it and he only looked up when he heard the sniper give a sharp yell. There was no time to move out of the way, and the force of impact knocked them both to the ground, Xigbar being on top of him. Luxord cracked his head rather painfully against the hard floor and the world flashed brightly before his eyes.

Neither of them moved for a moment. When the world stopped spinning and he had mostly gotten his breath back, Luxord raised his head slightly to look at the man on him. "Xigbar, are you all right?'

There was a soft groan before a response came. "Just peachy, dude, just peachy. Never been better, actually."

If Xigbar had enough energy to be sarcastic, he was probably fine. "What happened?"

"You stopped time, I already told you that."

"But how?"

"I don't know. You must have cast a Stop spell or something."

"How could I have cast a spell without at least knowing I did it?"

"Easy. You said 'stop.'" Xigbar raised his head. "I'm no expert, so you'll have to ask someone else about that. It's probably your element or something, you know? If it is, then you don't necessarily have to know that you did it to cast one."

He had been on the verge of saying something else, but when Xigbar shifted to look at him, whatever words he had been planning to say died on his tongue. Luxord was suddenly very aware of the fact that Xigbar was on top of him and that their faces were only a few inches apart. At his silence, Xigbar had raised an eyebrow questioningly, grin still playing idly on his lips.

Luxord felt heat rise to his face and as much as he wanted to look away, his gaze remained fixed on Xigbar's wet face and breathing was suddenly not as easy as it was before. The grin on the sniper's face grew bigger as he spoke. "Are you okay?" He tilted his face, voice teasing. "You're looking a little flushed."

At the sound of Xigbar's voice, Luxord realized he was staring and somehow managed to avert his gaze, doing his best to ignore the heat on his face. "Would you mind getting off? You're heavy."

Without another word, Xigbar did so and as soon as the sniper was no longer on him, Luxord sat up, trying to breathe normally. Xigbar settled into a sitting position next to him, still grinning. "So," he began, "why'd you suddenly freeze like that just now?"

It took him a moment to understand that Xigbar was referring to the earlier battle, and Luxord mentally berated himself. "I saw something."

"Really? Something from your Other's life?"

He nodded, not wanting to risk speaking again.

Xigbar accepted that and fell silent for a while. The rain hadn't let up and as a result, they were both thoroughly drenched. Since he wasn't moving around anymore, Luxord started to notice the numbness in his fingers and legs. The feeling continued to make itself more apparent but he didn't say anything, partly because he was still unsure of the condition of his throat and partly because he was in no hurry to get back to the castle.

His thoughts automatically drifted back to what happened a few minutes ago and he could feel his face heating up again. He turned his head to his left, away from Xigbar in hopes that the sniper wouldn't notice and tried to stop thinking about their earlier position.

In the middle of thinking about how his attempts were failing miserably and wondering why he couldn't stop thinking about just now, Luxord heard the sniper clear his throat and say, "We'll have to come back here again tomorrow."

Luxord chanced looking at the man next to him and asked, "Why?"

Xigbar turned to face him and grinned. "We've got work to do." At his silence, he elaborated. "You're going to have to figure out how to properly use those spells of yours. I don't really know how they work but I'm sure we can work something out.

He didn't say anything in response, silently debating whether to apologize to the other man or not, and he barely managed to stop himself from jumping when he felt Xigbar's fingers touch the new cut–which he had forgotten about–, lightly tracing the line. When Luxord looked at the sniper, Xigbar merely shrugged and withdrew his hand.

"Besides," Xigbar added casually, "I don't think I want to end up frozen like _that_ again."

**End of 17th chapter**

Many thanks to Porporino the III for providing the much needed base for this chapter. I'm very, very grateful. Also, thank you for reading this! And for being kind enough to wait. It's greatly appreciated!


	18. Recount of Oblivion

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter 18 : Recount of Oblivion**

He had no good reason to be angry at the other man; Xigbar had after all, been complaining about how bored he was for the past hour or so and it was only natural that the sniper would find something else to entertain himself with, even if that meant annoying someone else. In fact, Luxord should be used to the sniper by now.

Still, Luxord couldn't help but wish the sniper would find a different way to amuse himself.

After his fourth attempt at building a house of cards was thwarted, he shot a look at Xigbar, not bothering to conceal the glare he was sure was apparent. "Might I ask why you keep doing that?"

"Doing what?" he asked, feigning innocence even as his fingers played with the card he had just recently stolen.

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about."

"No, I don't believe I do," Xigbar replied easily. "What _are_ you talking about?"

Luxord gestured towards the captured card and cut straight to the point. "Stop stealing my cards."

"Why?" Xigbar grinned.

"Because I am _trying_ to form a house of cards. To do so I need my cards which you insist on snatching away. So kindly return the one you have in your hand right now and leave my cards alone."

"Well, I suppose so, since you asked so nicely and all." He stretched out and dropped the card on top of the pile of cards gathered on the floor. Then he returned his hand to its former position–which was propped up under his chin as a form of support–, expression on his face never wavering.

Luxord snapped his fingers and the cards begun to rearrange themselves into a deck. He turned his attention back to the man who had earlier claimed his bed and said, "Isn't there a better way for you to amuse yourself?"

"Of course there is. It's just that this is probably the most fun way to do it."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. Definitely the best. Nothing," Xigbar informed him from his position on the bed, "beats bothering you." He tilted his head to the right. "That was a compliment, I think. Aren't you flattered?"

"Most definitely," he replied dryly, taking two cards and starting from scratch all over again for the fifth time that day. "Your boundless generosity never ceases to amaze me."

The sniper laughed. "Glad to hear it, dude."

Luxord ignored him and when the sniper didn't say anything else an easy silence descended over them. As he steadily increased the size of his current project–his goal was to see how far he could go before the whole thing toppled over on its own–, he let his mind wander.

A report had been sent from Castle Oblivion recounting their steady progress with the Keyblade bearer and his friends who had recently arrived at the castle a few days ago. Apparently, things were going well enough. No report of serious trouble had been submitted yet; the Keyblade bearer was continuing his way up the castle, bringing him and his friends closer and closer to where the other members of the Organization was waiting. Other than him, Zexion had reported the presence of a second Keyblade bearer, a friend of Roxas's Other, who was ironically making his way down to the lower levels of the castle, where the other three members were waiting.

Overall, Marluxia had reported nothing that would cause worry, and Xemnas had voiced no comments, so Luxord had no other choice but to assume things were progressing as they should be.

"When you find that treasure thing, will you bring one back to the castle?"

He glanced up at the sniper briefly before responding. "Why? Are you interested?"

"Who wouldn't be? It's treasure, dude! You'd have to be crazy to not be interested."

"It's _cursed_ treasure," Luxord reminded him. "Unless you want to be a walking corpse, I suggest you forget about it."

"You're looking for it. Does that mean you want to be a walking corpse?" he retaliated.

"The only reason I'm looking into the matter is to somehow find a way to use it to our advantage."

"Right, right. That's the _only_ reason you're looking for it." Xigbar reached out with his hand towards the house of cards in front of him.

Before the sniper's fingers could pull out a card and destroy the delicately balanced object, Luxord grabbed his hand and spoke in a warning tone, "Don't."

Xigbar grinned and pulled his hand back. "By the way, the next time you drop by Port Royal, make sure you bring back some more rum. And bring as much as you can carry. Preferably more than five bottles."

Pausing in his motion of adding another level, Luxord looked at the sniper, practically feeling the disbelief on his face. "You finished _five_ bottles of rum already?"

"Five bottles is not very much," the man told him, "when it's being shared two ways."

"I drank half a bottle. You drank the rest. And if I am recalling this correctly, I gave you the rum two days ago."

Xigbar waved a hand dismissively. "Just, don't forget, okay?"

"Someone has a drinking problem," he remarked.

Instead of responding, the sniper disappeared, gone in a blink of an eye. The sound of cards fluttering reached his ears and Luxord could do naught but stare at the cards on the floor of his room. He barely bit back a curse was about to turn around when he felt Xigbar's voice right next to his ear. "There's nothing wrong with liking to drink."

For a moment, his breath hitched in his throat and he once again found it difficult to breathe. He wasn't sure why, but it had been happening quite often lately; during times like this, he felt thoroughly annoyed with himself, especially because it seemed to only happen when Xigbar got very close. Much like that moment, the other man was so close to him that Luxord could feel his warm breath on his shoulder.

Then, still unsure and distinctly aware of the sniper's close presence, he moved away from Xigbar and forced himself to take a deep breath before turning around to face the other man. "Certainly not." To his immense relief, his voice sounded normal enough. "Unless you do something you'll regret later, that is."

Xigbar was grinning at him. "As if. Chances of something like that happening are?"

"If you say so but whatever it is you might do in the future, I have no part in it."

Xigbar's next response was cut off by an urgent knock on the door. They both turned at the sound, and after a while. Luxord got up to open it. To his surprise, Xaldin was standing in the doorway. The raven-haired man looked at him and said, "Xemnas wants all of us in the kitchen now."

"Really?" he heard Xigbar say from behind him. Luxord stepped to the side, content to let the sniper do the talking. "What's the occasion/"

"Axel's back." At the silence that seemingly failed to grasp the significance of that fact, the man elaborated. "He's back, alone. And he says the others are dead."

Xigbar looked at Xaldin incredulously. "What?"

"He says the others are dead," Xaldin repeats monotonously, face remaining expressionless save for the grim look.

"That's ridiculous!" he exclaimed.

"Come down and see for yourself," was the response. Luxord watched Xaldin who, after giving a nod in his direction, walked away.

Xigbar didn't waste anytime; he immediately summoned a portal, grabbed Luxord by his arm and dragged him into the pathway. They arrived at the kitchen a breath later. Axel was seated casually in a chair at the table, looking far too relax for someone who had supposedly returned bringing back news of five people's deaths with him. Xigbar didn't move any closer, so Luxord stayed where he was. Xaldin appeared behind them with Demyx following close behind. Xemnas looked up at their entrance before looking back at Number VIII. "What happened at Castle Oblivion?"

"Sora and company, and his other friend. The one with a Keyblade of his own," Axel replied nonchalantly.

"So I've heard," Xemnas said calmly, tone never changing. "What happened to Number IV, V, VI, XI, and XII?"

Axel smirked. "They got killed. All of them lost to the Keyblade bearers. And the duck. And the dog."

"And yet, they didn't get you?"

"Well, seeing as how I didn't go looking for trouble after the other went up against them, I suppose so. Oh, and the girl ran off with some guy in a red cloak," he added absentmindedly.

"I see," Number I said. "The other members of the Organization were killed, leaving only you as the survivor, and Namine had disappeared with an unidentified man." He considered it. "It would seem that our Keyblade bearer has some amount skill after all. That is good to know."

"Good to know?" Xaldin demanded. "Xemnas, did you hear Axel? They're _dead_. We no longer have the girl either. Our numbers have been halved."

"Although it is a shame, it was inevitable. If they could not hold their own against the Keyblade, then their deaths were unavoidable."

Demyx spoke up. "Aren't you sad? I mean, weren't Vexen, Zexion and Lexaeus your friends?"

"Sad?" Xemnas repeated. "I am a Nobody, Number IX. To feel sadness is impossible."

"Yeah, but-"

"Pretending to mourn for them is a waste of time. We should begin the plan soon, as the Keyblade bearer has already proven his worth. However," he said, glancing at Roxas who was standing wordlessly in one corner, "I would suggest that you, Number XIII, stay away from him. It would be best if the Keyblade bearer does not learn of your existence."

Roxas didn't; say anything, but Xemnas didn't demand for an answer either. "Number VIII will remain here. Castle Oblivion is no longer of any use to us. When the time is right, we will initiate the plan and begin collecting hearts to make our own Kingdom Hearts. Until that time comes, the rest of you would do well to prepare yourselves." Number I left in a portal and Saix followed suit. Demyx sank into a chair just as Xaldin stomped out of the kitchen.

Xigbar looked at Axel and opened his mouth as if to say something, only to close it before turning around and walking away. Luxord followed him silently, letting the sniper lead the way, as he though about what had been announced earlier. Five members of the Organization was dead and ye oddly enough, he wasn't very upset. It could be because he had barely known the others–and that he didn't care in the least what about what happened to Marluxia and Larxene–, but he had thought he would've felt something at least. This brought him to the fact that Number XI, Marluxia was dead.

Apparently, Xigbar was having the same thoughts because he said, "Marluxia's gone."

To which Luxord responded to by nodding.

"Larxene's gone too, which, in its own unique way, can be a good thing, but Marluxia's gone." He didn't stop walking as he spoke. "For some strange reason, all I can think is, 'Nothing better could have happened to that man.'" Xigbar grinned. "Amazing, isn't it?"

"Actually, those were roughly my thoughts too," Luxord told him, watching the other man's expression; he had never been able to figure out what the two had against each other–since he was sure there was something Xigbar wasn't telling him–, other than the mutual dislike of each other that he himself had shared with

Marluxia.

"Well, I think we're better off without him."

There was a pause before Luxord said, "Are you upset?"

"No," he admitted. "Maybe a little, but I'm not seriously pissed off or anything. It's more like, 'Okay, Zexion, Lexaeus and Vexen are dead because they were killed by the Keyblade and I should be mad, 'cept I'm not because I'm a Nobody and all', you know?" Then Xigbar sighed. "Are you?"

"I'm not really very sure," Luxord replied.

Xigbar accepted that. "Makes sense, I suppose. It's not like you were close buddies with them or anything."

They walked in silence for a while for a while–though to were, Luxord didn't know–, both keeping quiet. Then, Luxord said, "What are you thinking about?"

Without stopping or even turning to face him, Xigbar said, "I'm thinking about how Xemnas changed his mind that day."

Luxord accepted that, swallowed his question about Marluxia and didn't say anything else.

**End of 18th chapter**

Actually, I wrote this one before I wrote chapter 17, so I'm not too sure how it sounds like to you. Anyways, thank you for your time!


	19. Unexpected

I'm really glad you guys didn't think it was lame or anything, (or maybe you did, but then didn't leave a review saying you were) and really relieved too. I hope this one's just as okay.

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter 19 : Unexpected**

Over the past few weeks, the Organization's numbers had been reduced from 13 to eight. Then it became seven, following Roxas's sudden departure. Xemnas had assumed that Number XIII had left in pursuit of his Other, Sora, and was most likely not going to return on his own accord. Having said this, he had sent numerous Dusks in search of Roxas and found him to be in a world called Twilight Town. Other than that, the Dusks also reported that Number XIII had apparently forgotten all about the Organization–an assumption based on the surprised reaction to the Nobodies' presence on the Keyblade-wielding boy's part–and didn't seem to know what a Nobody was. In fact, the former member was convinced that he had lived in Twilight Town all his life.

Xemnas credited the entire mess to Namine; he was convinced the girl was doing something to Roxas's memory–much like what she had done to Sora–, causing him to forget everything. Number I also said that the Dusks came back with news of a second Twilight Town, this one being the world outside the town Roxas was currently in; apparently, Roxas's Twilight Town was a visual world created by a man named Ansem. Luxord had asked Xigbar what Xemnas had meant by his comment when the name 'Ansem' came up, but Xigbar only grinned slightly and ignored his question.

After doing a bit of inquiring, Luxord had found out that Namine and the man–who he still knew nothing of apart from his name–were planning to restore Sora's broken memories to their original condition. Roxas was needed in order to wake Sora up from his sleep, a task made much easier by Roxas's own desire to meet his Other. Number I did not seem too worried about Number XIII because he had not sent any of the Organization's members to confront Roxas in person. He still ordered a number of Dusks to watch Roxas and report on his current situation but it never went further than that.

Meanwhile, Axel had grown restless. Number VIII had steadily become more edgy since the sudden departure of Number XIII, his behavior becoming increasingly erratic to the point that some members have started considering him unstable; Axel went around doing exactly as he pleased wherever he pleased, but Xemnas said nothing about it.

He supposed he should be worried, but Luxord was finding the task rather difficult so he didn't really try, blaming the lack of concern on the rum.

Not that he was drunk yet, though come to think of it, he couldn't recall ever being so. He would, however, be very surprised if Xigbar was capable of getting out of bed without help tomorrow.

Luxord had returned from Port Royal carrying–in spite of what Xigbar had requested–exactly five bottles of rum in his hands. He deposited them in his room and only returned for them after he finished reporting to Xemnas. It was late and there weren't many places Xigbar would be at that hour, so he knocked on Xigbar's door and, at the sound of Xigbar's voice, opened the door and entered.

He had only been in the other man's room a few times before since whenever they were together, Luxord found that they would somehow end up in his room. As a result, there was never much of a need to go to Xigbar's room. Upon entering, he found Xigbar sitting on the floor with a Sniper Nobody hovering in the air next to him. The sniper had his guns out, one of them glowing with charged bullets while the other lay dimly in his hand.

"_How was your little visit?" he grinned._

"_Dry, fortunately. The weather was more accommodating today." He walked in, closing the door behind him with his foot. As he moved towards the table to put the bottles in his hand on it, he felt the Nobody disappear through a rift in the air._

_Xigbar got up and walked over to him. "Well, what do we have here? Is that rum I see?" He picked one bottle up. "Luxord, you shouldn't have." Still grinning, he took a few swallows. "Not that I mean that literally. Though I think I remember asking you to bring more that five bottles the next time you came back from pirate land."_

"_Be grateful that I even bothered to bring any back at all," Luxord told him, picking one bottle up himself before moving to lie down on the side of the bed, back resting against the wall behind him._

_Xigbar grinned and followed suit, sitting down on the other side, gathering all the bottles, and placing them down on the floor next to the bed before making himself comfortable on the mattress with his fingers curled loosely around the mouth of the bottle._

Which was the reason why the sniper currently had a slur in his voice when he spoke, causing some of the words to merge inaudibly together. Not that he was saying very much; whatever it was he did say usually leaned towards random bouts of ramblings, so Luxord had mostly stopped listening a good measure of time ago.

Now Luxord, as opposed to the man next to him, wouldn't say he was drunk, exactly, but the rum was probably affecting him in some way; there were detached conversations in his head and he was sure he had no part of. Seeing as how he couldn't remember ever hearing or speaking the words swimming around his mind, he assumed it had been part of his Other's life. Making his decision, Luxord completely abandoned the task of listening to Xigbar's muttering in favor of attempting to understand what he was apparently remembering.

"It feels good to know that we almost have enough money."

"Well, all that hard work had to pay off eventually."

"I would hardly refer to gambling as 'hard work'. It's just a continuous stroke of good luck. You know that, right?"

"Of course I do. It's just an amazing stroke of endless good luck that seems to be going on and on and will continue to accompany us for the rest of our lives."

"Don't be ridiculous. All luck runs out at some point. It's just a matter time of time."

"Either way, let's just hope ours only runs out after the darkness takes it's leave."

"That would be best."

An image flickered into view, blurred and unfocused, and as he made out some of the more distinguishable parts of the picture, he vaguely remembered a place with two beds in opposing rooms and two people sitting at the table in the middle of the main hall.

He remembered ships being rocked gently in the water as the waves moved underneath them, bound to the port by ropes tied securely around short wooden stumps. He remembered a dry beach, a hot sun and sound soft seagulls coming or leaving. He remembered loud bustling streets and people rushing about, trying to earn as much as they possibly could.

He remembered cards being dealt, cards in a person's hands, sitting at a table in a dimly lit place, filled with its share of empty drunken laughter. He remembered cards being set down, winning hands coming one after the other and prizes being collected afterwards. He remembered looks of despair, of hope being drained away; he remembered faces of desperation as the same fearful thoughts filled the space in everyone's minds. He remembered the silent, desperate determination to not lose to fate.

He remembered a gun being fired and hot, searing pain accompanied by what was probably the warmth of blood seeping out and staining the wooden floor.

"You've always had the fortunes smiling down on you. It's better this way."

He remembered a feeling of bitter realization and anger at the sudden shattering of a trust formed long time ago.

"With your luck, those things probably won't find you."

He remembered a shivering voice, one that shook as the speaker attempted to convince himself to believe in the words he was saying, to believe the words spilling out of his mouth in a slow but absolute murmur.

"You'll make it, and when this is all over, I'll look for you."

He remembered shaking fingers clutching a pouch he knew was filled with money and feet leading to an open door. He remembered a pause in the footsteps when the person at the doorway turned around and muttered his farewell, before the door closed with a final thud.

"You'll make it. You'll survive. It's your fate."

Then the images stopped coming, fading away back to where they had come from and leaving only pictures of darkness and darkness and more darkness and he closed his eyes, letting out the breath he had unknowingly been holding in.

So that was how it had all started.

It had begun with a partnership being broken, hopes being stolen away by white fear of unfamiliar creatures sweeping through from the sky far off into the ocean, and the terror flooding every corner of the dark streets in a despairing town.

Well, the man was right; he had survived.

Lifting the bottle in his hands to his lips, he took a few big swallows of the bottle's contents, barely tasting the liquid going down his throat as he lost himself in thoughts, going over the newly added memories to what little he had, watching the life his Other had led. He replayed the images in his mind, not feeling anything as he watched everything again whilst he wondered all the while why his Other had not snatched the gun away when he had the chance.

Being so deep in thought, Luxord jumped slightly when he felt a hand touch his shoulder. Instead of falling off the bed–which, seeing as how close he was to the edge of it he only barely managed to do–, he turned to look at Xigbar, feeling the surprise that was probably clearly evident in his face as he asked, "What is it?"

"Do you really believe that we can't feel? I mean, do you really, really believe?" the sniper asked.

He frowned slightly, briefly wondering how many bottles the sniper had finished. "Believe in?"

"Maybe we can feel, but we don't realize it, you know?" Xigbar said, skipping a whole sentence completely as he moved into a sitting position and turned his head slightly to continue looking at him.

"What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "No idea. I'm just thinking about the 'what if's."

"Rambling, you mean?" he suggested lightly, not really meaning it but saying it anyways.

Xigbar chuckled, his laughter slurred and unsteady. Then he put one hand down next to Luxord and leaned in, moving closer to the point that their faces were only a breath apart. "Maybe."

Aware of the sudden close proximity, Luxord shifted uncomfortably under the gaze, wanting to look elsewhere but not quite able to bring himself to do so. For a few minutes, neither of them said anything and two kinds of silences filled the air; one was awkward and unsure, the other was unfocused but coming across as considering.

Then Xigbar grinned and said, "Or maybe, I'm only saying what I feel like saying." As soon as the slurred words were out of his mouth he closed in on what little distance was left in between them.

Luxord felt himself pull back instinctively, surprised, but with things being the way they were, there was very little space to move to and his futile attempts at pulling away were effectively stopped by a surprisingly firm hand on his shoulder. Xigbar's lips moved against his and he felt the sniper lean in a little more, and the hand on his shoulder curled up into a fistful of his jacket. The sniper's free hand trailed briefly against the side of his face and Luxord froze at the touch, thoughts having come to an abrupt halt moments ago.

As suddenly as it had started, the kiss ended without him really realizing it; he looked at Xigbar, a drunk, crooked grin on his lips. He wanted to say something but the words wouldn't come, so all he really did was stare at the sniper, face warm and probably red.

Xigbar hiccupped. "The rum's good. Don't forget to bring back more next time." Then, as if what had just taken place was the most normal thing in the world, the sniper lied down on the bed once more and turned to his side, away from Luxord.

He blinked and, after a moment's hesitation, he carefully peered over. The steady breathing confirmed his suspicions; Xigbar had truly fallen asleep.

Luxord wasn't sure what had happened; in fact, he wasn't really sure if any of that had really happened at all. If it had not happened, the rum could be blamed; he could have been drunk enough to have imagined the whole thing, but he could still feel another's lips on his own so he assumed that was rather unlikely. If not, then it really had happened and the alcohol could _still_ be blamed; Xigbar might have had enough to drink to do what he just did, which was not something he would usually have done and Luxord would never have expected him to do.

He felt a headache coming on.

Sighing softly, he stopped thinking about it–or, at the very least, attempted to–and forced his now tightly-strung nerves to relax as he lied down, turning so that his back was facing the other man's back. The kiss lingered on his lips and in his thoughts and Luxord drifted off into an uneasy sleep, thoughts swimming around Xigbar and the sensation of a mouth pressing against his.

**End of 19th chapter**

To BondxWithxNobody, I don't know how you guessed what I was going to do with this chapter (was it that obvious?) but there were a whole lot of changes from the original draft. The ending, especially, turned out completely different.

Actually, Porporino the III, sir, my exams went as okay as they could have gone, me being me. Of course, the okay results could have been because it was only the first exam of the year…but thanks for asking! And the little bit of reassuring at the end of your review.

I hope you people enjoyed this. Thank you for your time and your kind, encouraging reviews!


	20. Accepting

I'm sorry this took so unbelievably long. I really, really am. It's just, I think I'm losing interest because it's getting so difficult to force myself to put aside time to write for this. So, in my attempts to finish this, I have made it a rule that no matter what other story I write in the middle of _Passion's_ long journey to its end, none of it is going online until I write the last few chapters. So there.

Also, I meant to put this on last week, but the document manager wasn't cooperating with me, so I couldn't. I'm really sorry.

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter 20 : Accepting**

The next morning, he woke up–not that he had gotten very much sleep to begin with–before Xigbar did, with hints of the smallest of headaches throbbing lightly against his temple. Instead of getting up immediately, he chose to remain in a sitting position on the bed, watching the still sleeping figure next to him. Xigbar's breathing was a steady rhythm and his chest moved up and down repeatedly.

Looking at Xigbar made him think of last night, which, once remembered, would not cease bothering him. And it certainly didn't help things when Luxord felt his face heat up slightly every time he thought about it; unrelenting fingers and lips danced in his mind and try as he might, he just couldn't get rid of the images. In fact, he found that if he concentrated enough, he could still feel Xigbar's mouth against his own.

And that was worrisome, if not very disturbing.

His eyes strayed to Xigbar's face and he noticed the twitching in his fingers. All of a sudden, he was overcome by the urge to wake the other man up and demand an explanation. The man currently dominating his thoughts stirred and one eye opened to reveal a yellow iris. Luxord watched as the sniper pushed himself up into a similar sitting position, one hand on his forehead. Xigbar blinked a few times before looking at him. "Good morning."

"How are you feeling?" Luxord asked.

"I feel," he replied, "like a person who had way too much to drink."

"People who had too much to drink tend to feel like that."

Xigbar groaned softly. "My head hurts."

"Would you like some water?" he offered. "To help clear your head?"

"Yes. Don't know if it'll work, though."

Luxord got off the bed, swinging his legs over to the edge of it. He walked towards the door, deciding to take the slightly longer route to the kitchen. "Go wash your face," he told the man on the bed, one hand on the doorknob, before turning it and exiting the room. He heard the door click shut softly behind him as he closed it and started walking in the direction of the kitchen.

He came across no one else on his way down and the kitchen was silent when he arrived. Vaguely reminded of the stillness that seemed to hang in the air around him, Luxord got a glass of plain water for Xigbar, not bothering to get himself one; if he felt thirsty enough later on, he'll just come back down again. As he retraced his steps back up to Xigbar's room, he found his thoughts straying back to the sniper and images floated back into his mind.

How much, he found himself wondering, of last night did Xigbar actually mean? For all Luxord knew, it was just the rum talking and yesterday was simply an accident. And that meant things that happened yesterday would not be happening again, including the kiss.

At that thought, had he been someone other than who he is, he would have slapped himself. Liking it was bad, wanting the kiss to happen again went well past 'bad' and straight to 'there had to be an explanation for this.'

Reaching the room, he hesitated a moment before opening the door and, upon entering, found it to be empty. There were soft noises coming from the bathroom, so he assumed Xigbar was there. Luxord gingerly placed the drink on the table, the glass making a soft sound as the bottom made contact with the table. He sat down on the floor, leaning his back against the side of the bed as he reluctantly–though the feeling itself was rather minimal–allowed his mind to run wander freely around yesterday's event.

The door separating the bathroom from the room opened after a brief moment and Xigbar stepped out. Luxord gestured to the glass on the table and the sniper moved to pick it up, mumbling what might have been his thanks before drinking from it. He watched Xigbar finish the plain water and set it back in its former position. Noting the expression on the sniper's face and choosing not to mention the awkward look, he waited for Xigbar to speak first.

"About yesterday," said man hesitated, pausing in mid-sentence. "About last night, or, what happened last night…are you mad?"

Luxord considered the sentence Xigbar had blurted out–even though he already knew the answer to that question– and said, "No."

Relief flickered across the sniper's face, disappearing as quickly as it had come. "Okay. That's good to know." Xigbar took a few unsure steps forward and, once he was standing at Luxord's side, he crouched down.

Last night passed through his mind and he felt his breathing quicken again at the close proximity. "What is it?"

The sniper hesitated again before speaking his words tumbling out in a sort of rush. "Would you be mad if I kissed you again?"

Luxord blinked, momentarily wondering if he had heard right. "What?"

He saw Xigbar take a deep breath, gaze never wavering. "Would you," the sniper said, slowing down considerably, "be seriously pissed off I kissed you again?" When Luxord kept silent–which was mostly due to shock–, Xigbar sighed. "Supposedly, any emotion we feel now is only something we're remembering from the past right? But that doesn't really mean we're completely unfeeling. Even if it is just a memory, an emotion's still an emotion."

"That's because we're remembering something we've felt before," he pointed out. "It's not really the same thing."

"Then what about things we haven't felt before? Those can't be memories if we've never experienced it."

"Are you trying to justify your actions yesterday?" he asked. "You were drunk. That is more than explanation enough." Even as the words left his mouth, he was already hoping Xigbar wouldn't take the offered excuse.

"But that's just it. That's not all there is to it. I mean, yeah, dude, I was drunk, but there's more to what happened than that."

Somewhat relieved, Luxord raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yeah," was the reply.

"How so?"

"Maybe I wanted to do it," Xigbar suggested. "Maybe I've wanted to so much that at times it's all I could think about. Maybe, just maybe, I've been thinking about kissing you for a long time and being drunk happened to make it happen."

Luxord vacillated. "What about the part about no having a heart?"

Xigbar leaned in, face coming closer to Luxord's own. "That part doesn't have to matter if we don't want it to, right? Why waste time debating something that becomes insignificant if we just forget about it?" He grinned. "Might as well as ignore the whole thing."

"So you're saying it's okay to pretend we feel even though technically we can't? Just by not thinking about it?"

"Like I said, that's not the important part. What _really_ matters is if you'd be upset with me, or if you'd like to do it again too." Xigbar tilted his head slightly. "Would you?"

He thought about it and realized, with all things considered, he didn't really care. In response to the sniper's question, he leaned forward, closing what little distance there was between their faces, and caught Xigbar's lips in his own. He felt the other man jerk back slightly before pushing forward. Luxord reached up and ran his hand through Xigbar's hair, letting stray strands fall in between them.

The sniper was leaning his entire body against him, pressing Luxord against the solid part of the bed behind him. He shivered involuntarily when a hand trailed over his chest, skirting lightly before grasping the material of his jacket tightly and they stayed in that position for some time.

Finally, they broke apart, hot breath blowing against each other's cheeks. There was a pause as they both, panting for breath, inhaled air again and when Xigbar looked at him, his one visible eye grinned at him with the rest of his face. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Luxord pretended to consider it. "Perhaps."

If possible, the grin on his face grew wider and Xigbar moved in, planting a kiss on the side of his neck. He laughed when Luxord shuddered slightly, moving up to kiss him briefly on the mouth again. "Well, I don't know about you, but I really enjoyed that. Can we do that more often from now on?"

Luxord let one hand run down the side of Xigbar's face, feeling the cicatrices on the other man's face underneath his skin. "I'll consider it," he said, moving in for more even as he said the words.

**End of 20th chapter**

Okay. Um, I mentioned above that I'm losing interest, right? Well, that is very, very true, which is bad. And my exam is next month, which is even worse. So. There's going to be about three more chapters after this one and then it'll be over. And they'll all be really short. And maybe a little rushed. Yeah. I apologize if none of them is up to standard, but please know I'm doing the best I can.

That being said, thank you for your patience and time.


	21. To Prepare

Remember: if possible, read this slowly. There's no need to rush things.

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter 21 : To Prepare**

One would have thought that after the halving of the Organization's numbers, nothing should come as a surprise anymore. And yet, Luxord found himself slightly shocked anyway when he found out about Axel's betrayal. True, the man had been behaving strangely ever since Roxas had left, but to go as far as turning his back on the Organization for the sake of chasing after Number XIII, Luxord wasn't sure what to think about it.

And to make matters worse, both Demyx and Xaldin had been defeated by the Keyblade wielder, reducing the Organization's forces to a mere four. A few days ago, they had all been sent out on a mission to collect more hearts. Demyx's mission had come first and his death reached the castle's walls not long after the meeting. The next one to leave for a mission was Xigbar, but he had come back safely enough, save for the numbness he complained of in his fingers and feet. Almost at the same time, Xaldin had departed for his own mission and he met his death at the Keyblade next.

Through all these deaths and steady decrease in numbers, the other members barely showed any emotion concerning it at all. The only one with what deserved to be called a reaction was Xigbar and even his was at the barest minimal. Still a disturbing though in Luxord's opinion, as he himself could muster up no such anger or sadness.

The only thing left for him to do was to put it out of his mind and not think about it, which was precisely what he faithfully practiced every moment of the days; it wasn't all that difficult to do.

At the moment, Xigbar was on a hunting spree out in the Dark City. Earlier, he had announced the need to shoot some Heartless and had insisted on going off by himself–when Luxord offered to go along with him, Xigbar had smiled, kissed him briefly on the lips and told him that there was no need– even though the weather had altered itself to pouring a relentless storm over the world.

So with Xigbar gone, he was left with very little to do in the castle. He had, in a state of disinterest, chosen to go to the large library and had been strolling down the paths between the shelves, scanning row after for in hopes of finding something he might enjoy reading; it didn't have to be exceptionally captivating, just interesting enough to occupy his attention for a little while. So far, he had found nothing and was barely taking in the titles of the many books as he passed them.

He turned around a corner and would have walked straight into the person standing there; as things were, he had looked up and barely managed to stop walking in time. A good thing he did too, because Saix simply didn't seem like the type of person to react very well to an unwanted collision, even if it was entirely his own fault.

The silver-haired man spoke. "What are you doing here?"

Recovering fast from the slight shock and the hasty, staggering steps back, Luxord managed to keep his voice at its normal tone. "Passing time."

Yellow eyes glowed as Saix smiled at him. "Passing time," he repeated. "You do realize that there isn't much of time left for us, don't you?"

He frowned slightly. "Meaning?"

"Meaning that this race is reaching its finishing line. Even now, the Keyblade wielder is already making his way over to this world as we speak. The final battle for us is close."

"Isn't that a good thing? Kingdom Hearts _is_ nearly complete," he pointed out.

"Indeed it is," Saix said in a half-whispered, stroking the spine of a random book absently as he spoke. "And when it is finally completed, we will get what was originally ours again. All the Nobodies will find a place in this universe of worlds."

Absently, Luxord wondered what it was Saix had come down to say to him; from what he had seen, it was rare for the other man to initiate conversations.

"But before we can bathe in the moonlight of hearts, there is one final obstacle that stands in our way."

"Oh?"

Saix looked at him. "Yes. We must get rid of the Keyblade wielder and his friends first. They are still a threat to out final goal." He continued without waiting for a response from Luxord. "Kingdom Hearts was created using all the hearts the Keyblade released, the ones we collected. The Keyblade wielder will not agree to us achieving something of that kind. Once he gets here, and he will come to save his captured friend, he will do everything he's capable of to destroy us. He will attempt to kill the remainder of Organization XIII and the other Nobodies."

Luxord had a sneaking suspicion he knew what Saix had come to discuss. "Do you have doubts about the Organization's victory?"

"Yes," he said simply, startling Luxord with his blunt reply.

"Why is that?" he asked in return.

"Out of the original 13 members, there are only four of us left. Our numbers had decreased since our involvement with the Keyblade wielder. Every meeting with him has left us with one member less."

"And you think the same will happen when the Keyblade wielder comes here?" Luxord guessed.

Saix's expression remained unchanging. "Axel is dead. His 'proof' has already become red. The traitor probably showed the Keyblade wielder the way to this world. We should expect some uninvited guests soon."

"Why," he asked, "are you so doubtful?"

"I am not doubtful. Everything I said is only my reminder to you, so you'll be as prepared for it as a Nobody can be when the time comes," Saix replied easily, smiling slyly.

Something inside him started to turn cold slightly and Luxord could feel the hollow feeling teasing him. "What do you mean?"

The smile vanished and the usual unaffected expression fixed itself onto the other man's face. "Once the Keyblade wielder and his fellow companions arrive, Number II will engage him a in a fight. Your turn comes after his. The Superior said you must do everything within your power to delay his advancement." Saix turned around briskly. "Inform Xigbar of this when he gets back."

Without another word, Saix walked away and Luxord watched him go. His mind was going at a rate slower than usual, taking its time to process the other man's words earlier. After a while, he absently made his way out of the library and up the castle, passing room after room and remembering how all of them were now unoccupied. There was worry gnawing away the edges of his mind and the hollowness was rapidly spreading itself all over the inside of him. He didn't want to think about what Saix had meant earlier but regardless of what he did, the words just kept coming back.

"Luxord?"

He looked up at the sound of the voice and saw Xigbar standing a few feet away from him. The slightest bits of amusement colored his thoughts; for once, it was Xigbar that was wet and dripping all over the floor and not him. He attempted a smile that most likely did not work, judging from the concern that had found its way to the sniper's face, and said, "Welcome back."

Xigbar cocked his head. "Dude, are you okay?" Then, "You look worried."

At that, Luxord walked over to Xigbar and pulled him into a somewhat tight embrace, surprising the other man, all the while very aware of the way the thoughts in his head were running around in frantic circles.

Saix expected them to die.

He felt hands wrapped around him, pulling him closer, and Xigbar's almost muffled voice whispering into his ear. "What's wrong?"

Luxord closed his eyes in almost regret for what he knew he had to do next. He kissed Xigbar lightly on the cheek, a quick, soft touch, fought to keep his voice steady, and told him.

**End of 21st chapter**

Feel free to tell me what you think, 'kay? Thank you for your time!


	22. Parting Ways

What I really feel like writing right now is something sad. Really. Or something depressing. That would feel nice.

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Chapter 22 : Parting Ways**

Silent moments were always uncomfortable ones, where neither of the two parties said anything to fallow conversation. It would usually be the time most would use to come up with a new topic to speak of, to think of the many variations available. Moreover, Luxord had learned to tolerate waiting, especially when there were games involved. Given the nature of the games he so enjoyed playing, waiting for the right opportunity was always the key to winning. Knowing this, he ha trained himself to be patient, to wait silently until the opportune moment arrived. He was used to stretching his patience; that and the waiting.

But never before for something like this. No, this time around, things were different.

He wasn't used to waiting for something he knew he could not change, could not _manipulate_ to his own benefit. The mere thought of such a thing irritated his nerves, causing his whole body to tense up, muscles straining and fingers giving small, involuntarily twitches every now and then. His legs were nervous, brimming with energy but he only squished the urge to move about in response. He gritted his teeth and held himself stubbornly against the wall behind him.

If Xigbar had noticed, the sniper chose not to mention it. "Do you ever wonder about what would happen to us if we did manage to get our hearts back?"

He would have kept silent if the situation was different, but things being the way they were and Xigbar being the one to have voiced the question, Luxord relented. "No, not really. Do you?"

"Yes." There was a pause and footsteps bounced off the walls of the room in echoes. "I think that if we did, we would change back to our Others."

"Why?"

"Because we're Nobodies. We became this way because our hearts were taken away. If we get a heart for ourselves, we wouldn't be Nobodies anymore. We'd be Somebodies, and by right, that means we'll go back to being who we were before." Xigbar grinned at him as he continued to walk. "So, we really aren't meant to exist after all."

He'd say something to that but he just couldn't think of the most appropriate thing to say, so he looked down at the floor instead.

There is silence for a short moment before the other man spoke again. "Tell me about your Other."

Luxord lifted his head to look at the sniper. "Pardon?"

"Tell me about your Other," Xigbar repeated, turning around to retrace his steps when he reached the end of the room.

Even with the jacket he was wearing, the air still felt oddly cold, remaining as it had been for the amount of time they had been here. He swallowed, hoping to maintain a steady voice. "My Other was a fool."

Xigbar stopped in his tracks, pausing the pacing he had been doing since they came here in favor of sending him a somewhat amused look. "Really? What makes you say that?"

"He made three large mistakes with his life," he replied carefully, picking out the words he felt would be best to describe what he remembered. "Firstly, he trusted a complete stranger in a time of danger which inevitably led to the occurrence of the second and the third."

"What kind of time was that?"

Luxord took a deep breath. "No one knew what was going on then, but there were stories, rumors from those who came from across the ocean. They said that dangerous times were coming, that the darkness was spreading fast across the waters, and warned us to be careful. Some people believed them, some chose the opposing option. As a result of the stories, a fortress was eventually constructed, miles away from the tides of the sea. It was to be protection for the people when the rumored darkness arrived."

Xigbar didn't say anything when he paused for breath, so he pushed himself forward. "But there was a catch, as always. The people who had organized to build the citadel didn't really believe in the stories and felt no injustice in taking advantage of the stories. Those who wanted admission to the fortress had to pay a price, and it certainly wasn't cheap, which was the reason a sudden competition for money amongst the believers started. My Other partnered up with a man he met at a tavern. A game of cards was played and won and the stranger had offered a bargain."

Suddenly, the ground underneath his feet shuddered, the vibration lasting for a half a second before vanishing. Xigbar looked at him pointedly. "What happened then?"

"The agreement was for the both of them to look for money together, which would then be divided equally among the both of them. Everything went fine until the day the darkness rose up from the ocean, living proof of the stories so many others had brushed off easily." If he closed his eyes, he was sure he'd be able to see everything in his mind. The whole life would replay itself for him behind his eyelids, even if at that moment, he felt absolutely nothing about what had happened.

"People panicked and everyone rushed to the fortress only to find out that the conditions still applied, and the price was rising higher and higher as time went by. My Other wasted no time and ran back to the house they both shared. Once he arrived, he found his _partner_ there, money in hand. Instead of using the element of surprise to his benefit, my Other spoke to him. That," he said, "was his second mistake."

Xigbar had started walking in his direction and now rested his body in a similar fashion next to him. Luxord cast the sniper a short glance before looking ahead of him and continuing. "There was an argument which ended with my Other lying down on the floor, bleeding all over it. The man who had pulled the trigger dropped the gun to the floor, offered his apologies and walked out of the door with the money."

When he remained silent, Xigbar asked, "Is that it?"

"Luxord considered it. "Yes," he said finally.

"Hm." Xigbar cocked his head. "You didn't mention the third mistake."

He straightened, trying to relax his still twitching fingers. "That would be when opportunity slapped him in the face, gave him a gun and lent him some time, and he looked the other way and let it pass. The third," he said, "was when he refused to believe what was happening and didn't use the gun to shoot the traitor in the back."

There was another surge under the ground and they both knew what it meant. The Keyblade wielder had entered the castle and the other Nobodies were probably greeting them. Xigbar turned to him. "That's my cue."

Luxord returned the gaze and nodded, all the while wishing that it wasn't. Then, he didn't quite see who reached out for the other first but the next moment, Xigbar was pressed up against him, lips meeting his in an almost painful kiss. The contact didn't last long, but the sniper didn't fall away when it ended.

"You know," Xigbar whispered into his ear, "you sleep talk."

Despite the seriousness of everything at that moment, Luxord couldn't help but smile a little at the sudden comment. "I do?"

"Yeah. Just once, though."

"When?" he asked.

Luxord couldn't see Xigbar, but he could guess the grin forming on the other man's face, judging from his amused voice. "That day you blacked out after your first training session. After I carried you back to your room, I didn't exactly leave immediately and you started mumbling in your sleep."

He didn't see any reply that might have been suitable to that, but he chose to respond anyway. "And you only found the need to tell me this now?"

"Yup." Xigbar pulled away and smiled at him. He reached out and trailed a hand down the side of Luxord's face. "Be careful."

His throat tightened considerably and he barely managed to choke out his reply. "You too." Without another word, Xigbar turned around and walked out off the room, Luxord watching as he left.

And just like that, Xigbar was gone.

Luxord stood there in the room that glowed softly with a mixture of red and blue lights, arms dangling at his sides, and wondered briefly if all of this was really happening. He couldn't hear any noises, but that didn't exactly prove anything. At this point, his body was beyond restless and his legs started moving on its own, even after he told them not to. It went on for a while, his legs leading as he walked aimlessly around the room in circles.

He was worried, concerned and completely unsure of what to think. He thought he was already prepared for the outcome and thus should not be surprised when it happens, but every part of him was dead set against thinking it, let alone believing in it. This left him with nothing to think about. And so he continued pacing around the room with silence for company and not really thinking, and time flowed by like air, rushing by and him ignoring it.

Until something in the air hummed and he turned around, his insides twisted into a hard knot.

And he saw the blue of Number II's 'proof' change to red.

The sight of it made him froze, both physically and mentally. He was vaguely aware of the empty something crawling upwards inside him as he continued to stand rooted to the ground, gaze fixed on the red tainting the walls.

Then he remembered their promise; they had both agreed that, regardless of what happens, they would fight the Keyblade wielder to death. When he was reminded of it, a thousand images and memories flooded his mind. Luxord turned around, pretending not to see the red anymore, or the memories, and truly trying to will himself not to feel the faint touches that still clung to his skin, and walked into the waiting portal.

**End of 22nd chapter**

Thanking you for your time!


	23. Final Moment

Okay, you guys. I'm sure you all agree that I've dragged this story on longer than I expected it to be. Firstly, my apologies. I hope you like this (which is really short) and liked the rest of this story too. I really, really, hope so with all of my heart.

Next, since this is the last chapter and I don't want to spoil it by putting the 'thanks' at the bottom, I'll put it here and you can skip it if you want. Many thanks go to those who reviewed! You guys were the source of my determination!!!

tsukai-kaze  
Carmen Willious Dorman  
DarkAngel067  
Porporino the III  
Eoko Formerly Known as Hick...  
Web-of-Knots  
two-bite-brownies  
Goldenfur  
Blazonix  
BondxWithxNobody  
Cerium

This might seem a bit lame, but I really wanted these people to know how much I appreciate their time. Thank you so much for your reviews! You have helped me in so many ways with your comments! Many, many thanks over! You guys so totally rock!

And now, we move on.

Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney.

**Passion**

**Final Chapter : Final Moment**

When he heard the voices underneath him, he felt his whole body tense up in reaction. They spoke to each other and he'd probably be able to make out the words if he tried, but at that moment, he didn't particularly _care,_ so he didn't bother.

He breathed. Luxord breathed again and again, and forced himself to wait for the right moment. Timing was everything, he reminded himself. He tried to be patient, reminding himself that for his plan to work timing was essential and a second too early or late would change everything, especially if he wanted to avoid suspicion. He stood still, breathed, and forced himself to wait.

They Keyblade wielder and his friends turned around and started to run back the way they came. He waited and waited and when the Keyblade wielder was a few steps ahead of the others, he appeared in the middle of the now two groups, and snapped his fingers.

He didn't have to look back to see the cards circling those behind him; he already knew they were there. Just like when he snapped his fingers a second time, he knew they'd be gone.

The boy standing in front of him gave him a glare full of pure hatred. Looking at the expression, Luxord imagined all of the other members of the Organization facing the same look and he almost laughed then, deciding he might be amused.

The Keyblade wielder started to say something but Luxord neatly cut him off, inserting his own words. "I'd rather we just skip the formalities."

As the enemy readied himself for battle, Luxord thought about Xigbar again, remembering everything he knew about the other man. He remembered his almost constantly mocking voice and the scarred skin underneath his fingers; Luxord remembered how surprisingly soft Xigbar's hair had felt in between his fingers and he could almost believe in the touches that seemed to ghost his skin now. He remembered every moment he had spent with the other man, and looked at the boy in front of him.

The sooner the fight ended, he decided, the better.

**End of Passion**


End file.
